


Sink Your Teeth into the Taste of Me

by Urania_baba



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Accidental Knotting, Alpha Izaya, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Gaping, Angst and Feels, Breeding Kink, Claiming Bites, Creampie, Deepthroating, Face-Fucking, Fingerfucking, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Topping, Fluff and Smut, Implied Non-Consensual Body Modification, Implied Relationships, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mpreg, Omega Shizuo, Possessive Behavior, Praise Kink, Riding, SO MUCH FLUFF, Shower Sex, Switching, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unplanned Pregnancy, background Izaya-typical assholery, kink meme fill, so many firsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:15:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urania_baba/pseuds/Urania_baba
Summary: Un-anoning a Kink Meme prompt flilled through September 2015 to November 2016.Anon asked for anything Omegaverse and it gripped something in me and refused to let go.You can find the original threadHERE.This was my first writing anything omegaverse and anything Durarara!!. It has both Izuo and Shizaya, and I hope the OOC-ness is not too much a detriment, I tried my best at the time. I hope someone enjoys the fruit of my effort.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 13
Kudos: 99





	Sink Your Teeth into the Taste of Me

By the time Shizuo first met Izaya, he was already used to the familiar rage induced blackouts; the missing seconds or minutes between the familiar peaking anger and the conclusion of his involuntary fit. He was coming down one of them when he barely registered Shinra spouting about this guy, kind of an asshole he said, when he first felt the Haze.

He met the guy's red eyes, saw the smirk plastered all over his face, and with the first deep breath after the fight Shizuo felt the Haze first cover his brain, and the words slipped past his lips, sealing their fate.

"You piss me off."

It had never been clear in his mind why he had reacted the way he did to Izaya. Shizuo was not, and will never be, good at putting most of his feelings and thoughts into words, not without a lot of careful perusing and close self-reflection. There was just something about Izaya that instantly made him want to push against, to piss off and challenge and see how far they could go.

He had never been so clear headed before, and yet he felt dazed, his world narrowed down to Izaya's burning eyes and razor-sharp smirk, the stinging burn of Izaya's blade across his chest, the tang of blood and Izaya's smell in the back of his throat; Izaya's voice ringing in his ears and consuming his every thought.

His body was in overdrive, heart pounding, blood blazing, but the most unbelievable and infuriating thing of all is the perfect recall he has of the whole thing. It pisses him off that he doesn't know why.

He doesn't know why Izaya makes him feel this way when Shizuo could never remember anybody else unfortunate enough to piss him off before and since they met.

***

The day everything changes is like any other before, in this cat-and-mouse equilibrium they've established for the last few years.

They run into a dead-end alley, and Shizuo's blood is pumping, heart blazing, and Izaya's finally caught. He can't believe it, and with a crash against one wall of the alley he finally has him.

It's like trying to hold onto a spitting-mad, feral cat, all teeth and nails and kicking, trying to get free of Shizuo's grip. Shizuo is not going to let him get away, not when he finally--

Izaya sinks his teeth into his neck and bites, breaking skin, drawing blood, desperate to get free, and Shizuo can feel something inside him snap into place. It's what he thinks might feel like to get struck by lightning, something that feels like electricity traveling all through him, his mind goes blank, his blood turns into fire and an agonized sound escapes from deep inside his chest.

He wants to cry out, he wants to moan and plead and--

His body goes limp and Izaya shoves him off, managing to escape from his hold, not even hesitating for a parting quip before taking off, and Shizuo simply stays there, kneeling on the floor, dazed, reeling; full of emotions he's not even close to identify.

He raises a hand and touches the edge of Izaya's bite and he can't hold back the moan that escapes from his lips. He recognizes the heat that sings through his veins and pools low in his gut, though; what he doesn't understand is _why._

***

The Haze is not fading. Ever since that time in the alley and the bite. He feels disconnected and sluggish, though no one seems to notice anything out of the ordinary. He feels something like a craving, and there's always a cigarette at his fingertips and ready to be lit, but he doesn't go further than just putting it in his mouth. They don't taste the same, somehow. Nothing's tasted the same since then. It's getting harder with every day that passes. A whole week without Izaya making an appearance, and Shizuo isn't the only one feeling restless because of this.

The Haze makes it difficult to care about everyday things; Izaya's bite throbs constantly, and his body feels feverish, over sensitive, as if every bone in his body was broken and the fever radiated through his skin from deep inside. The heat that had previously suffused him remains a dull ache inside his bone marrow, a glowing ember of sensation that refuses to fade. He can't stop thinking about what happened, and something in the back of his mind, in the deep place of his chest that aches like he's holding his breath, throbs as well with something that feels like longing.

He cannot stand the touch of others without feeling his skin crawl in aversion, without feeling his lip wanting to curl on a snarl of warning: _Don't. Touch._

He's not sure how much longer he'll be able to go on like this, with no one noticing something's obviously changed.

***

The Haze sinks into his bones and it hurts. It hurts like broken bones used to do, like pins and needles all over his body. He has the presence of mind to call Tom and let him know he's not feeling well, but the details of the call become fuzzy around the edges of his memory.

He feels nauseated, stomach cramping and guts twisting; he breathes slowly, deeply, trying to keep his meager stomach contents down. He feels hot and cold at the same time, and shudders with every churn in his gut.

He wants to crawl under the covers, but his skin is starting to prickle and he tiredly wrestles his sleeping clothes off, underwear included. He feels the sweat cooling over his skin and he shivers, but the feverish feeling doesn't stop. He ends up tangled up in the sheets anyway.

He doesn't want to call Shinra, so he's going to try to ride this out. He falls into a doze when the pain recedes.

He dreams of red skies and summer, salt and sweat, and the blood Izaya made flow to paint it.

***

He wakes up with his instincts on high alert. He sits up in the bed, sheets falling down his torso to pool at his waist, still dazed; still the Haze inside his brain, but he knows somehow he's not alone in his room anymore.

There's the metallic sound of a blade being flicked open, raspy breaths and a very well known smell permeating his atmosphere, and the quiet embers lying almost dormant in his bones wake up and rage an inferno through his veins.

A pained sound escapes him, a growl, a moan, a whimper, all three combined, he's not sure; he knows only that Izaya is here, in his room, breathing the same scorching air.

"What did you _do_ ?" He hears from the dark, and the gravel in Izaya's voice makes him sound almost like a stranger. "Shizu-chan," he growls, and Shizuo has no breath to whimper, "what did you _do to me_?"

Shizuo can't think straight, not with the Haze and the burn and the want.

" _Shizu-chan_ ," Izaya insists, stepping into a patch of light coming from the window, and now is when Shizuo can see; see the way the color rises high on Izaya's pale cheekbones, the sweat beading and sliding down his face, his neck and collarbones; eyes dark and feverish, Hazed.

"The Haze," he croaks, licking his lips and feeling thirsty enough to want to lick up every bead of Izaya's sweat. "You have it too?" He manages to ask.

"The _what_?" Izaya asks back, belligerent.

"The Haze," Shizuo replies, closing his eyes and breathing through his mouth, because Izaya's smell only makes things worse.

"Is that what you call your stupid rage? Are you telling me it's contagious now? Like a monster virus? Don't play _games_ with me, Shizu-chan," there's danger in Izaya's voice, and for a long moment Shizuo doesn't know how to react, because there's confusion at Izaya's words warring with the sudden flash fire of lust that scorches a trail down his spine and burning down his gut.

"I-I-- no... What?" Shizuo feels breathless, desperate for something, the heat becoming almost unbearable and why--

"This stupid rage and-- and _madness_ since the bite in the alley! Pay attention, Shizu-chan! What the _hell_ is happening to me?!"

"I don't... I don't know... " He whispers, throat dry, sweat beading his brow.

"Fuck that! Don't give me that crap, Shizu-chan!"

"Izaya," he pleads, "I don't _know_! You've always made me feel like that!" he shouts. There's a hitch in Izaya's breathing, a sudden intake of surprised breath. "But something's changed..." He continues, trailing off.

" _What_ changed? " Izaya prompts, impatient.

"I--"

"Don't say you don't fucking know!" The informant interrupts, frustrated.

"You _bit_ me!" Shizuo snaps, and the heat throbs inside his veins, and he can't stop himself from pressing down on the bruised bite mark with the heel of his hand, breathing out a moan and closing his eyes.

"... Shizu-chan?" The question is but a quiet, breathy sound; a spark in the volatile air inside Shizuo's room.

"Izaya..." Shizuo moans the informant's name, "Izaya, _please_ ...! I can't-- I can't _think_ . I can't think of anything but that day, that-- that bite-- and _you_ . I can't think of anything but you _biting me_ \--"

He doesn't get to say anymore before Izaya is upon him, the sound of Izaya's knife falling to the floor barely registering, before Izaya's hands and mouth and teeth are on him, fanning the fire under his skin to new heights.

"Shizu-chan... " Izaya groans between kisses and grazing teeth, "Shizu-chan, I couldn't stay away. I've been going mad trying to stay away. Shizu-chan... Shizu-chan..."

"Izaya... " Shizuo whispers, dizzy with heat and kisses.

"What are we _doing_ ? What _is_ this?" Izaya wonders, breathless, but he's not stopping.

"I don't know... I don't know..." Shizuo breathes against his lips, baring the marked side of his throat in silent submission and savoring Izaya's groan of approval.

Izaya kisses down Shizuo's neck, licking over the mark and softly sucking at it, and Shizuo's body goes limp again, mind blank and a pleading whine keens in the back of his throat. Izaya purrs against the bite, pleased, and Shizuo can't stop his hips from bucking up.

Izaya moves the sheets aside, straddling Shizuo's legs and pushing him down the bed. He takes off his overcoat and shirt and Shizuo has only the barest presence of mind to pop the button of Izaya's slacks open and to pull the zipper down.

In a moment they're both naked, fevered skin against fevered skin, moaning and growling into each other's mouths, breathing and sharing the same heated air.

Izaya grinds against him, and Shizuo parts his legs and wraps them around Izaya's waist, bucking up in the same rhythm. They've always been somehow synchronized, able to read each other's movements.

Shizuo doesn't know how it happens, but there's more heat and friction and pressure, and before he knows anything else there's the feeling of Izaya slipping inside him, huge and hot and Shizuo feels the Haze consuming everything, leaving only pleasure in its wake.

Everything is a mess, tangled up in his head, he has no presence of mind to unravel everything that's happened so far, is still happening; instinctual motion, pressure, pleasure, heat and pain and _finally_. Izaya's touch and warmth, taste and smell and deep, deep inside, beyond the physical; Shizuo can't help but think he'll never be able to get him out, he'll never be able to tear Izaya out from him after this.

An eternity of sensation later, he screams Izaya's name when he comes, clinging to him and biting on the junction between neck and shoulder, feeling Izaya shudder and groan, a jagged sound that stutters along Izaya's hips; Shizuo can feel Izaya come inside him as he licks the salt of his sweat and blood.

"Shizu-chan," Izaya gasps, dazed sounding, an edge of confusion that could have been panic in a different situation, "Shizu-chan, what's happening?"

Shizuo makes a questioning sound, opening his eyes, which he hadn't noticed he had closed, and murmurs a languid, "Huh?"

"Shizu-cha-ah-n... Sh-Shizu-chan, I can't stop..." Izaya 's moan sounds pained, almost agonized, and soon Shizuo can feel pressure again, inside him, filling him up more and more and with a strangled sound of pleasure he claws at Izaya's back, thrashing, back arching, throat raw with screaming Izaya's name again, again, again.

They keep going, they don't stop, cannot stop, Shizuo sobs with the never-ending pleasure and Izaya's bites mottling his neck black and red and blue, growling, "Mine, mine, mine, Shizu-chan, _mine_!"

"Izaya," he calls, pleading, delirious, "Izaya, please, please, please," he doesn't know what he needs, what he wants, anymore, it's all too much, too much, too much and not even close enough to be enough and he pulls Izaya down to kiss him and taste his blood in Izaya's mouth, taste both their blood mingle in the open-mouthed kiss.

He feels Izaya's hand on his cock, Izaya biting at his mouth, and he doesn't know anything much after that: He passes out.

  
  


***

"Shizu-chan?" Izaya's calling him, Shizuo somehow knows. "Shizu-chan, are you awake now?"

"Nnn?" He mumbles, throat dry. There are little kisses raining on his face; soft, sweet press of lips upon his eyelids, "Izaya?"

A giggle in answer, and Izaya mutters a soft "Mm-hmm", resting his face beside Shizuo's, cheek to cheek.

Shizuo basks in warm contentment for a while, dozing, and almost purring with Izaya's soft ministrations; kisses and licks and nuzzling.

"Say, Shizu-chan," Izaya begins, softly still, "Don't you think it's weird?"

"Mm? What's weird?" He mumbles, sleepy.

"Us. Here. For starters," Izaya replies, "That we fucked; that you let me top," he continues, still dropping kisses on Shizuo's skin with every listed thing. A pause, "That... That I seem to still be stuck inside you..." He trails off at this point with a hiss of pleasure and a shift of his hips that sends ripples of reawakened pleasure all throughout Shizuo's nerves.

"A-ah! Izaya?" He gasps, eyes opened wide, catching Izaya's half-lidded ones with his own, "What-- is that -- nnh!-- is that y-you?"

"Y-yeah," Izaya breathes, nuzzling at Shizuo's neck." _Fuck_ , Shizu-chan, what the fuck is happening to us? Why the fuck do I have this-- _this_?!"

"What is... it?" Shizuo whispers, nosing at Izaya's dark hair, feeling the puzzling urge to offer some kind of comfort.

"Something... Something like a knot..." Izaya replies in a whisper too.

"A knot?" He repeats, and Izaya nods, quiet. "Like wolves?"

"Yeah, like wolves, Shizu-chan..."

The silence stretches, and there's a heavy certainty sinking low down Shizuo's gut, the shadow of guilt settling over his previous peaceful contentment.

"This is my fault, isn't it?" He asks. "When you bit me... Did you swallow my blood?"

"Shizu-chan," Izaya says, sounding like a protest, and it's suddenly quite clear the way they are so obviously not themselves anymore.

"Didn't you?" He insists, putting his hands on Izaya's shoulders and pushing him off enough to look him in the eyes.

Izaya looks conflicted, agitated, and Shizuo is certain Izaya is fighting between lying and telling the truth. "I did," Izaya concedes with a sigh. "I've felt pretty rotten this last week. Pained, feverish. Among... other things... I cannot tell you it didn't cross my mind to blame it on you, Shizu-chan." Shizuo can't stop the flinching that Izaya's words cause.

"It is my fault, then. We're like this because of me..."

"Shizu-chan," Izaya's voice cuts through the onset of the familiar downward spiral of guilt and self-loathing, "We're like this because you are gorgeous and I couldn't help myself."

"But you've never--"

" _UGH_ !" Izaya interrupts, hiding his face against Shizuo's bare chest, but not before Shizuo can clearly appreciate the bright flush blooming across Izaya's pale cheekbones; with a growing sense of wonder, Shizuo stares as Izaya's ears quickly turn bright red as well. "Shizu-chan, _please_ stop! I have no defenses right now! I'm vulnerable! Vulnerable! Like an innocent child, and your thickheaded-ness is going to be the end of me, because it's going to make me confess the most embarrassing things! Like the huge fucking torch I've been carrying for you since we met and the way you've been fucking stomping all over my unrequited feelings since then!"

Shizuo is speechless, to say the least. "I--" He's about to speak, but stops himself with the way Izaya seems to kinda fold into himself, like trying to make himself smaller, as if bracing for something about to hit.

Shizuo forces himself to slow down, to think. Time stretches by along with the silence, and Izaya remains tense, small and curled up like a wounded creature, so the least Shizuo can do is try to put his thoughts into words. Late as the gesture might feel, after all the years they've spent doing nothing more than using their words and actions to hurt each other.

"I've never known how I feel about you," He begins, and Izaya goes still, "When we met, when I first saw you, when I could identify the way your voice sounds, how you smell, I wanted to push. I don't know how to explain it. I wanted to push your buttons, I guess. Challenge you somehow. Because you're the only one I remember through the Haze."

"The haze," Izaya says, "You mentioned that before."

"Yeah," Shizuo confirms, nodding. "You see, when I get angry, real angry, I don't control the way my body reacts, the anger blackouts everything: the why, the whom, the place, the faces, everything, until it's over and I'm left with a bunch of broken pieces to somehow piece together the story of what happened this time. But when I met you, Izaya, it was more like a haze instead of a blackout. So I call it the Haze. Because I can see, blurry on the details, and I can remember. Especially you."

"I always thought you hated me with everything you had," Izaya confides, placing a hesitant kiss over Shizuo's breastbone, "I always thought the only way I could make you pay any kind of attention to me was to make you hate me more than you could possibly love anyone. That if your hatred for me managed to be bigger than the love for anyone in your life, then it wouldn't matter that you didn't like me; as long as you felt stronger for me than for anyone else I would be satisfied..."

"I wanted--" Shizuo begins, faltering, trying to find the appropriate words to convey the complex tangle of his feelings. "When we met," he tries again, "I had already spent years trying and failing to self-destruct..." Izaya's body jerks in surprise, and he lifts his head from Shizuo's chest, trying to make eye contact with him, but Shizuo cannot meet his red, red eyes.

"I hate violence, Izaya," Shizuo whispers, "I hate what I am, what I do. I hate that I can't stop it from happening. When I lost control, at first, it would always end up in broken bones. I spent most of my childhood in the hospital. The first time..." his voice drops in shame, barely audible, "I almost threw the fridge at my little brother because he ate my pudding. I broke my back before I could. The only other person to show me kindness outside my family I sent to the hospital trying to help..."

Izaya remains quiet, and Shizuo simply lets everything pour out, slowly, rushing like a creek runs into a river and then into the sea.

"I had given up trying to restrain the anger by the time we met, I didn't care, I didn't even get broken bones anymore. Everything had slowly stopped hurting me, at least physically. When we met, you--"

"My, who knew you could be this talkative, Shizu-chan?" Izaya finally says, breaking into Shizuo's quiet bout of self-flagellating reflection. There's a spark of annoyance inside him at Izaya's interrupting words and tone, but the spark remains a spark instead of quickly igniting into the usual fiery rage. He looks into Izaya's eyes and finds him waiting, in expectation of a reaction. He huffs his annoyance at Izaya and nips at Izaya's bare shoulder in reprimand.

"Asshole," He mutters, and the annoyance is snuffed out.

They remain silent a while again, until Izaya breaks the quiet with a heavy, shaky sigh . "It's changed..." He says, serious, tremulous. "Everything."

"Yeah," Shizuo agrees, quietly. Then, as an afterthought, he adds: "Shinra's gonna have a field day." He'd be lying if he told Izaya's indignant screech of protest and subsequent tirade is not entertaining at all for him.

He has the feeling that they're going to be fine. After all, nothing's ever been able to stand in their way before and Shizuo'll be damned if he's about to let anything start now. There's a deeply satisfied feeling inside him that knows, just as surely as Izaya claimed him as his, that he's claimed Izaya as his own.

He knows he'll fight to keep it that way. There's time to worry about things when they come; there's no use in worrying about the tomorrow that's yet to arrive .

Shizuo knows that'll be Izaya's job from now on, and, funnily enough, he trusts that Izaya will do his part... whatever _that_ might be now.

  
  


***

  
  


It takes less than an hour more for the-- the knot-- Izaya's -- to finally... go down. He slowly slips out of Shizuo, a slick, smooth slide that makes him moan deep inside his chest. Shizuo feels his face burn with a flush of embarrassed arousal when he feels Izaya's cum start to trickle out of him.

"Fuck," Izaya says, emphatically, reaching with his hands to spread Shizuo's butt cheeks apart, staring intently at Shizuo's sloppy hole.

"Fuck, Izaya, don't," Shizuo pleads, a dirty moan mixing with his voice.

"It's so much, Shizu-chan..." Izaya continues, transfixed, and slowly sinks two of his fingers inside Shizuo, not stopping until they're knuckle deep and Shizuo's moaning and writhing, unsure if it's too much or not enough.

"Izaya, please," He ultimately begs, almost sobbing in over-stimulation when Izaya grazes his prostate, "I can't, I can't, no more, please!"

"Shizu-chan..." Izaya groans, "Shizu-chan you're full of me..." His hand stills, crooked enough to almost rest on Shizuo's sensitized prostate; it's like a tease, a barely there, feather-light feeling of almost touch, and Shizuo trembles with the effort of keeping his hips still, restraining the need to push himself into Izaya's deliciously cruel, long fingers.

"Izaya," Shizuo calls his name, hoarse, it seems the only thing in his mind, Izaya's name, like a prayer, the filthiest prayer that's ever crossed his lips, "Izay-ah!"

"Shizu-chan," Izaya growls, holding still too, his other hand is holding up one of Shizuo's trembling legs by the knee, Shizuo's almost sure Izaya's hand is trembling too. "Shizu-chan I want..." He stops mid-sentence, licking his lips and looking up into Shizuo's eyes before biting his lower lip, and Shizuo wants to do the same to those lips; kiss and lick and bite until they're both sore and bleeding and tasting each other without being able to differentiate between who's tasting whom.

"What? What do you want, Iza-ah-- Izaya?" Shizuo gasps; he's afraid of breathing too deeply, lest he feel too clearly the way his whole body throbs around Izaya's fingers still buried inside him.

"I wanna fill you up..." Izaya whispers, voice low, almost slurred; lust-drunk. "I wanna fill you up more, Shizu-chan. Fill you with my cum until you can't take anymore. I want-- I want--" A harsh sound of longing escapes, Izaya's jaw clenched tight in an effort of self-control, the hand holding Shizuo's knee tightens enough to bruise. The next words out of Izaya's mouth make no sense, yet they reach deep inside, resonating with Shizuo's most primitive instincts and he can't restraint himself anymore, he pushes himself onto Izaya's fingers, but they're suddenly not enough to satisfy, not enough to fill him.

"Say it again!" Shizuo pleads, voice rough; the informant's name in his mouth is nothing but a plea once again. "Izaya!"

Izaya growls once more, possessive and pleased with Shizuo's display. He takes his fingers out of Shizuo, purring at the whine of protest the blond is too far gone to be embarrassed about. The informant leans over him, positioning himself between Shizuo's legs again, the head of his cock against Shizuo's sensitized hole, barely pressing, teasing; Izaya's lips brush against Shizuo's ear, placing a soft kiss, tracing the shell with the tip of his hot tongue, puffing the words, those undecipherable, unbearably scorching-hot words, into Shizuo's ear; a soft sweet whisper, like a secret.

"I want to breed you, Shizu-chan..."

Shizuo makes a wounded sound, like a keen, a whine, another plea, he seems to be begging for Izaya a lot, he distantly notes, all the while trembling with anticipation.

"What do you want, Shizu-chan?" Izaya whispers in his ear, with a soft, quiet kiss. "... Did you hear me?" He asks, hesitant, a bit of doubt creeping into his voice when Shizuo cannot find air in his lungs to promptly answer. "Do you want me to...?"

"Yes," Shizuo hears himself answering, distant through the Haze and desire, moaning longingly. "Yes, Izaya...!"

"Good," Izaya whispers in Shizuo's ear, "Good, Shizu-chan, " before kneeling up and leaning back to sit on his haunches. "Come here," Izaya says, offering his hand.

It takes Shizuo a moment to understand what it is that Izaya seems to want, so he takes his hand and lets Izaya pull him up into his lap, maneuvering him to perfectly position him over Izaya's cock, teasingly close. Face burning, biting his lower lip in mortification, Shizuo stares into Izaya's blood-red eyes, wide-eyed, when realization strikes.

With a high-pitched keen that turns into the most whorish sound to ever escape Shizuo's mouth, he sinks down Izaya's hard, hot cock, hands clutching at Izaya's shoulders, bruising; clawing down Izaya's back when he's halfway down. Izaya's hands soothe him, caressing his trembling back, supporting him by the waist. Izaya kisses and whispers reassurance into his skin, softly moaning along with Shizuo, and his red eyes glitter with contented desire while Shizuo slowly, inch by agonizing inch, loses his mind.

He's ready to scream by the time he finally drops all the way down, shakily accommodating his larger frame on Izaya's lap, feeling the burn of Izaya's length inside him, except there's no air enough in the room to fill his lungs, not enough oxygen to make his head stop spinning.

"Fuck, Shizu-chan," Izaya coos into his ear, kissing and petting him, soothing, soft, praising. "You're a sight, you know? You've always been stunning; stupidly gorgeous; I can't believe you're all _mine_..." Shizuo keens and trembles, seeking Izaya's mouth like he's starving, and Izaya lazily indulges in a long, leisurely exchange of tongues. Kisses and spit and teeth. They kiss soft and wet, fierce and sloppy and almost desperate.

Izaya continues stroking his back, down to his buttocks, to his trembling thighs, circling his waist, rubbing circles with his thumbs; cooing soft encouraging words, slowly tempting and easing Shizuo into motion.

It's borderline painful. Shizuo's oversensitive, almost on the edge of sensory overload, but he can't stop. He doesn't want to stop. He wants to scream Izaya's name, wants to feel him ever deeper, wants to come hard enough to pass out and wake up with Izaya still inside. Again. Again, again, again, again...

He wants to lose himself in Izaya.

He wants Izaya to lose himself as well.

With a snarl Shizuo pushes Izaya down, on his back, and he focuses on holding him under him while he rides him, letting loose, riding harder and faster, all the while without taking his eyes off Izaya's own.

"Give it to me!" he snarls, demanding, feral, fierce, and he can feel Izaya's whole body tense under him, his cock twitching inside, "Fill me up, Izaya!"

"Fuck, Sh-Shizu-chan, _f-fuck_ \-- a-Ah...!"

Izaya throws his head back, his body arches, taut as a bowstring, and he comes inside Shizuo.

Shizuo feels Izaya's cock spasm inside him, the warm wetness of Izaya's release, and he rides the informant's orgasm out. He doesn't stop moving, impaling himself over and over, feeling how Izaya's knot slowly begins to fill. Izaya thrashes under him, whining and keening like Shizuo has been doing. It's fucking hot as well as reassuring, to know he's able to make Izaya feel the same kind of almost-too-much-to-bear pleasure.

"Oh, oh, no more, no more, please Shizu-chan, please...!" Izaya brokenly pleads between bouts of incoherent gibbering.

Shizuo only stops when it's almost painful to feel Izaya's knot slipping out, and with a last thrust down he buries Izaya's cock inside himself. However this time, t _his time_ , he's not so far gone like last time, less delirious with heat and Haze, and he can feel _everything_ ; every deliciously agonizing second of it.

He can't thrust himself on Izaya's cock anymore, so he grinds. He sways and grinds and clenches tight around Izaya, ripping pleasured, almost pained, breathless sounds from Izaya.

Shizuo feels as if under a trance, as if his body wasn't his own; it's the Haze, he knows, and this is still him here, in this moment, in control of his actions, but he had never done anything like this, not with anyone. He touches himself, his neck, his shoulders, dragging his nails across his sensitized skin; it's a weird thing. It feels good, shivery, but the weirdest thing is the thoughtless way his hands seem to wander, the way they seem to seek adding up to the already intense pleasure he's feeling.

He drags his nails across his nipples, down his stomach, and he lingers at the crease where thighs meet pelvis. It's a slow exploration of his own skin, something he's not given himself the luxury of doing before. He's briefly distracted by a low, purring sound, and he focuses his dazed eyes on Izaya's face.

Izaya's color is high on his sharp cheekbones, his dark hair plastered to his sweaty forehead; pink, puffy lips parted through heavy breathing, tongue coming out to lick the dryness out of them. And his eyes; Izaya's eyes... They're fixated on him, half-lidded and dark red with lust and desire and emotions Shizuo isn't in a state to be able to identify.

"What is it?" He whispers, voice hoarse.

"Keep going," Izaya replies, voice just as low, just as breathless, "I want to watch you..."

Shizuo acquiesces with a soft sound and he keeps going, trailing fingers across his skin, and Izaya murmurs approval or praise or suggestions for Shizuo to follow or ignore at his leisure; keeps talking until the filthy, tender words become background noise, buzzing in Shizuo's ears, sinking into his brain until they become part of the Haze covering this room, which could very well be their whole world.

"Touch you nipples, Shizu-can... yeah, like that... I want to bite them, suck them, make you beg and scream, Shizu-chan... Shizu-chan, touch yourself more, yeah, touch your cock, let me see you, you're gorgeous, beautiful, _mine_... all mine, Shizu-chan... come, come, I wanna see you come, Shizu-chan... yeah..."

"Yeah... like that... a-ah...!"

The Haze covers the whole world again, and everything but themselves here, in this place, in these moments, dissolves into mist at the edge of Shizuo's awareness once more.

  
  


***

It's night again-- still? --, that's the only thing Shizuo knows with certainty when he regains consciousness. He's groggy with sleep and tiredness, but he feels much more clear-headed than he's felt in weeks.

He realizes almost immediately he's not alone in his bed, and that he's the little spoon with someone shorter than him. It's not a bad feeling, to wake up like this, he thinks. Even if the other spoon is Izaya.

There should be more to it, he thinks, to his reaction at waking up in bed with the one who used to be his most loathed adversary, the bane of the thing he had most desired: a peaceful existence.

Shizuo searches deep inside, careful to analyze his thoughts and feelings in the quiet, peaceful gloom of his room; with the slow sound of Izaya's breaths in his ears and the warm caress of them on his back, he reaches a conclusion.

He's relaxed in contemplation, he hasn't moved, so it's not really a surprise Izaya thinks him asleep. He's careful to extricate himself from Shizuo, and careful to get up from the bed without rocking the mattress. There's a quiet intake of breath when Izaya tries to stand up, and a moment later the sound of Izaya kneeling on the floor, picking up his discarded clothes.

Shizuo feels the blood pumping in his ears, heart in his throat. Is Izaya leaving? Is he? He realizes he doesn't want that. He turns around in the bed, without sitting up, trying not to make himself be noticed by Izaya.

He shouldn't have worried so much: Izaya's looking at his gathered things, clothes and overcoat on his lap, one long-fingered hand covering his mouth, darkened red eyes reflecting thoughts that seem to be a million miles away.

Shizuo sees Izaya tightly close his eyes, hands clutching his stuff, teeth sinking on his abused lower lip. "Come on," he hears Izaya whisper to himself, "Come on, get up. Get. Up. You have to go. You _have_ to..." He takes a shaky breath, "Before Shizu-chan can kick you out... Before you start to grovel like a pathetic loser asking to stay. For a chance you don't deserve. So get. Up--"

"Izaya," Shizuo speaks, eyes on Izaya who startles like a scalded cat, turning panicked eyes toward Shizuo. There's a lot of things Shizuo could say, from the cruel to the uncharacteristically comforting. He opts for practicality. "Come back to bed?"

The options are left open, the rest depends on Izaya.

After a long, long silence, Izaya lets out a shuddery breath, drops his things back on the floor and climbs up on the bed, under the sheets Shizuo hadn't noticed had been over them. He's facing Shizuo, a hesitant expression in his face, but there's no doubt at all in Shizuo's mind, so he closes the gap between their bodies, encircles Izaya's waist with his arm and nuzzles into Izaya's chest.

Words can wait until morning comes; all except for one, which Izaya seems to need hearing: "Stay."

Shizuo holds his breath until Izaya whispers a quiet "Okay," into his hair.

***

Shizuo's always been an early riser, he has to be when trying to snooze an alarm clock or cellphone means destroying it, which is something that seems to surprise the people that have come to discover such a thing. And by people he means Tom, Shinra and now Izaya.

"Noooo, Shizu-chan, come baaaack," he sleepily whines when Shizuo gets up to take a shower. He feels absolutely disgusting, doesn't know how long he's been sweating and bleeding and-- yeah.

"I'm taking a shower," he answers and Izaya simply whines once more and burrows under the sheets, out cold once again by the time Shizuo comes to the conclusion Izaya is becoming cuter and cuter, and how did he never notice this?

The water is hot and it feels amazingly good. Shizuo focuses on getting clean, taking inventory of every tender spot where teeth and nails marked him, feeling the remnants of the burning embers inside his bones still lit whenever Izaya's marks sting with hot water and soap. A soft warmth in comparison.

His hands begin to wander again, slippery with soap and wetness. His nipples feel good, tender, and the heat in his body burns a little higher when he strokes and pinches them, rolling them between his fingers.

He drags his nails lightly down his torso, down his abdomen, circling his belly button, and down still. He feels the coarse texture of his pubic hair, and the sensitivity of the skin under. His cock is hardening again, already filling with rushing blood, taking an interest despite having seen more action in the last 48 hours than the rest of his life.

Shizuo marvels a bit at this development.

Sexual arousal had never been too much of a concern growing up. Spending most of the time sedated or in pain, channeling most of his energy into trying to exert control and then in simply resigning himself to the sudden explosions of violence. Most of his energy has always been devoted into the cycle of exerting himself physically and healing after.

Other than the occasional adrenaline fueled arousal or the once-in-a-blue-moon wet dreams, vague misshapen things he never could quite remember, he never quite had to deal with embarrassing reactions caused by physical attraction. Until now.

No one had ever touched him like he was touched by Izaya. No one had dared. And something inside told him Izaya will be the only one precisely because he had been the one to dare.

That scratch across his chest; Shizuo thinks often about it. That was the moment their lives entwined and Izaya's presence in his life became a certainty, a nuisance, a constant trigger for the Haze. He wonders sometimes if they spent so much time at each other's throats because of it. Now that this... thing... happened, he thinks, maybe the Haze is what made everything happen. It makes as much sense as anything else could in a world where someone like him and his strength and Dullahans and other unexplained phenomenons exist.

It would explain, maybe, this internal heat that seems to have sunk into his bones, burning from the inside, burning higher and higher with Izaya's touch, with knowing Izaya's near, knowing Izaya's his.

He's fully hard now, and he tries to ignore it in favor of getting himself clean, but his body cannot help but react without his meaning to. Especially when he reaches back to clean himself. His asshole feels tender, a bit sore, and the water makes his insides feel slippery, slicker. He hisses, a mix of arousal and discomfort the result of using his own fingers to clean himself inside. He can't stop himself from thinking Izaya's long, slim fingers feel way better than his own broader, rougher ones. Shizuo bites down on the moans that try to make their escape and keeps at it, but the slippery feeling inside himself doesn't seem to stop.

Just how _much_ had Izaya come inside? Shizuo wonders, perplexed. Is this normal?

His legs begin to tremble, his whole body does, and his toes are wanting to curl. The initial discomfort is past, and now every flex and twist of his fingers is beginning to feel really good. Shizuo groans in dismay. How is he not clean yet?

"Shizu-chan?"

"Fuck," he hisses, tightly closing his eyes and riding out the sudden flush of heat his body responds with at hearing Izaya's voice. This could very well be the end of him, he realizes. The end of both of them if they cannot stop getting carried away, if they cannot stop the fire from burning them down to cinders.

"What are you doing?" Izaya croaks, voice rough and full of rumbling heat.

"Ah... getting-- getting clean? I-- I don't seem to, ah, to manage..." There's a heavy pause, and Shizuo chances a glance toward Izaya. Izaya's predatory eyes are on him, color high on his cheekbones, and Shizuo licks his own lips and waits to see where they go from here.

"Do you need any help...?" Izaya asks. "Do you _want_ it?" he purrs.

"Yeah..." Shizuo replies, already breathless.

Izaya wastes no time and quickly joins Shizuo in the shower.

Shizuo takes his fingers out of himself and slowly turns around to face Izaya, a bit self-conscious of his turned-on state. They share a slow gaze, and they cautiously close the gap between their bodies, meeting their lips under the warm spray of water, holding one another and bringing their bodies close, entwining their tongues in their mouths and their arms each around the other.

The falling water makes their caresses feel slick, and Shizuo has the sudden urge of wanting to touch Izaya all over. Kiss and touch and lick. To learn everything about his body, how he feels and tastes and the sounds he'll make when Shizuo discovers him with every sense. In every sense.

"Izaya, let me?" He asks against Izaya's wet mouth. Izaya looks into his eyes and slowly nods, closing his eyes when Shizuo kisses him again; Shizuo feels nervous and somehow excited at the same time.

He takes the soap and the washing cloth and builds up a good lather, Izaya's red eyes on him all the while. He slowly soaps Izaya down, all of him, and when the last suds are flowing down the drain he allows himself to kiss and lick and touch.

He's careful, methodical in the slow, thoughtful way he stops and catalogs every reaction he gets, no matter how minute. The way Izaya quietly chuckles when he nibbles on the left side of his neck; the way he shivers when feeling Shizuo's breaths on his right shoulder and the way Izaya melts when Shizuo bites.

He licks at Izaya's nipples, bites and sucks and leaves them puffy and reddened, licking and biting a trail down Izaya's abdomen, sinking to his knees and feeling Izaya's hard cock against his cheek. Shizuo takes Izaya's cock in his hand and licks from root to tip in a slow, thoroughly filthy, wet slide of his tongue.

Izaya's long fingers find their way into his hair, carding through it, pushing his fringe back from his face, just in time for Izaya to see Shizuo take him into his mouth.

"Fuck, Shizu-chan, watch the teeth," Izaya hisses.

"Sorry," Shizuo lets him go for a moment, "I've never done this before."

"I can tell you how... That okay?" Izaya says, caressing his face with his free hand. Shizuo places his own hand over Izaya's and leans into the caress, nosing at Izaya's hand and kissing his palm.

"Yeah, tell me what to do, how to make you feel good, Izaya." The hand in Shizuo's hair immediately tightens, and a groan escapes from Izaya.

"You'll be the end of me, Shizu-chan..." Izaya says, the roughness of the groan still in his voice. Shizuo chuckles and playfully bites at Izaya's thumb, slowly sucking it into his mouth. Izaya purrs and takes it out to trace Shizuo's bottom lip, leaving it shiny with spit. Izaya applies the briefest of pressures and Shizuo obediently opens his mouth, ready to receive Izaya's cock back into it.

Izaya's careful to slide himself into Shizuo's ready mouth, murmuring soft instructions, telling Shizuo what feels good in a soft, breathless voice, encouraging and pleading by turns.

"Mnnn... Shizu-chan... Good... You're doing so good... mmm..." Shizuo feels hot all over, full to burst with a tangle of feelings and pleasure; he doesn't know why Izaya's praise matters so much, why pleasing him feels so fucking _good_ for him too, but he wants more, more of this fulfilling burst of emotion; he'd do anything to keep feeling this way.

"Shizu-cha-ahn... Shizu-chan-nn... can you take more?" Izaya asks, and Shizuo nods, eyes closed, a little lost in feeling the wet slide of Izaya's cock on his tongue. "I'll go slowly," Izaya says, and he does. He's slow to pull back and slow to slide in, each time a little further, deeper, until Shizuo almost can't breathe with Izaya in the back of his mouth. "Shizu-chan," Izaya calls his name, raggedly, Shizuo can feel him trembling, "Can you? More?"

Shizuo nods, humming in affirmation, and Izaya groans again. He trembles with the effort of holding back, of going slow, Shizuo thinks while he feels Izaya sliding back in. He takes a deep breath through his nose and prepares himself to hold his breath; and then Izaya can go no further and Shizuo feels him in the back of his throat.

Shizuo tries to make a sound, pleased with this achievement of taking Izaya so deeply, but he feels his throat tighten around Izaya's girth instead.

"Fuck!" He hears Izaya cuss, sliding back enough to pull out of Shizuo's mouth, "Fuck, Shizu-chan, you didn't... you didn't choke? You okay?"

"Izaya," Shizuo says, voice rough, "Do that again."

Izaya stills, red eyes looking down into his own, and Shizuo wonders how he looks right this moment, wonders if it might be possible to look as wrecked as he feels.

"Yeah?" Izaya asks, combing Shizuo's hair, caressing his face and his tender lips.

"Please," Shizuo says, and Izaya proceeds to fuck his throat raw.

***

They laze about in Shizuo's bed, cuddling, dozing. After the shower Shizuo's throat felt sore, so they haven't said any words yet. Izaya's weirdly silent, mellow under Shizuo, who feels content to snuggle up to him to rest his head on Izaya's belly, with Izaya's hand in his hair, petting.

Which is why he can clearly hear the moment Izaya's stomach protests in hunger.

He buries a chuckle against Izaya's tummy, kissing it when Izaya hisses at him like an indignant cat. He sits up, stretches, and gets up, padding to his modest, tiny kitchen, still naked and barefooted. He rummages in the fridge and his cupboards, thinking on what could be done to fill their bellies with the things he has available.

"Ne, Shizu-chan~," Izaya says, coming behind him and wrapping his arms around him, almost clinging to his back due to their height difference. "Let's order in?"

"Mmkay," Shizuo concedes, leaning back on Izaya and baring his throat when Izaya starts softly nibbling at the purpling bite marks on display on Shizuo's neck.

Izaya turns him around, kisses him senseless and maneuvers Shizuo up against the counter, sinking to his knees and taking Shizuo into his wicked mouth.

After Izaya finishes blowing Shizuo's mind they order the food. Izaya places the order and pays for it via credit card, and Shizuo's the one that has to put on some clothes to go open the door when it arrives.

They eat in bed, feeding each other, sharing the food in between licks and kisses and bites.

They nap the morning away into mid-afternoon, spooning again, and wake up stretching languidly like lazy cats in the warm, sunlit and honey-colored room. Izaya's hands drift mindlessly over Shizuo, petting and caressing and rousing.

Izaya fucks Shizuo again, slowly. The sense of urgency is less acute, they feel no rush this time, no desperation. They're on their sides, Shizuo's back to Izaya's front, one of Shizuo's legs over Izaya's, Izaya's arms around him, teasing his nipples or his cock while he sucks at Shizuo's neck and shoulders. Shizuo's not sure how long they've been like this, slowly swaying into each other, dripping with sweat and trembling with every sweet, slow thrust.

Orgasm is slow to build, Shizuo isn't sure if they've been hours like this, in this slow simmering moment. Izaya comes first, a shuddery gasp, a contented sigh, soft kisses falling onto Shizuo's back and shoulders, and Izaya using his clever, wicked hands to bring Shizuo off.

They lay quietly in the afterglow and Shizuo drifts off in a light, comfortable doze. Izaya slipping out of him rouses him from the light slumber and he turns around in Izaya's embrace to rest his head under Izaya's chin. "How long s'it been?" He asks, voice slurred.

"Half an hour, at most," Izaya replies. "It's been lasting less..." He mutters.

"When I sucked you off you didn't..." Shizuo comments, curious about it thinking back. Izaya had fucked his throat raw, but hadn't knotted.

"Mm-hmm..." Izaya replies," It seems to happen only when I'm inside Shizu-chan," He wickedly whispers his next words in Shizuo's ear, knowingly, "It seems I really _am_ trying to breed Shizu-chan~"

"Unn, dammit, Izaya!" Shizuo whines," We just finished, I can't go so soon again!" He moans at the heat he feels in his gut at Izaya's words, those damnable words. He doesn't know why they affect him, them, so fucking much.

Izaya chuckles with evil glee at his reaction, his hand scratching down Shizuo's back to see him arch like a cat into the rough caress. "Hasn't stopped us before, Shi-zu-chan~" Izaya's other hand slides down Shizuo's thigh, raising it to drape it over Izaya's hip, leaving Shizuo exposed, spread enough to seek entrance into him with his long, long fingers.

Shizuo shudders, muffles a moan against Izaya's collarbones, clutching at him for purchase, as if drowning in the unruly waves of the pleasure he brings over him, and thrusts back onto Izaya's fingers.

"I like to see you undone by me," Izaya says, in the quiet way Shizuo's beginning to identify as his "confession" voice. "I like this way of handling you better than the old one, Shizu-chan..."

"Izaya..." Shizuo says, his heart throbbing almost painfully with the quiet words.

"I'll have to go, Shizu-chan..." Izaya says, even more quietly, and Shizuo doesn't dare to lift his head and look at him, tethered as they are in this moment." Sooner or later someone's gonna come looking for us; the world is gonna barge in on us. So I'm going to have you for as long as I can before I have to go back to the real world..."

Go back. To the real world...

The thought leaves Shizuo stone cold. The thought their time is almost over, the clock is ticking, and this... this thing that happened between them... it might...

It might change again...

"Izaya..." Shizuo whispers, but doesn't know what to say.

"Shh, Shizu-chan, shh..." Izaya's lips press a kiss upon his hair, his brow.

Shizuo shakes his head in negative; he wants to speak but there's something blocking his words' way out. He doesn't know what to say. So he kisses Izaya, bites and licks at his lips until he tastes salt. He tells himself it's from their mingled sweat, from the blood from their biting, desperate kisses.

Their coupling is slow and bittersweet. Shizuo's on top of Izaya again, riding him slow, slow, slow, he wants it to last as much as possible, because he has the feeling it's going to be the last time they do this. The fire is burning out. Why is it burning out? Why does he hate the thought of Izaya leaving, having to leave? How has everything's come to _this_?

_Why_ did they have to change? Why did he have to find out he could feel this way only to have to...

"Shizu-chan... Shizu-chan, don't make that face..."

"Izaya... Izaya, I can't... I can't... please..." Shizuo closes his eyes tightly, feels wetness sliding down his face and he tells himself it's just sweat, only sweat.

"Shizu-chan... I--... Shizu-chan..." Izaya's voice sounds thick, and his hands frame Shizuo's face to guide him into a kiss. The salt on their lips tastes bitter this time. It's bittersweet.

So bittersweet...

When Shizuo wakes up the next morning, early with the sunrise, as always, Izaya's not in his apartment anymore.

  
  


***

It's not without a sense of being out of sorts that Shizuo returns to his everyday routine. He still has his job, Tom covered for him, after all, and things should be back to normal, right?

Everything is different. Wrong. And the days begin slipping through his listless fingers. His rage triggers so much he barely manages to remember the days (Fee Fi Fo Fum, the monster of Ikebukuro it's walking among you); spending most of his nights tossing and turning in fractured sleep, unable to find rest.

Only the calendar on the fridge, a gift from Kasuka, of course, reminds him of the date.

One day, two, three becomes one week, two, three...

He doesn't know how he managed to withstand the loneliness before he knew what it was like to feel intimately connected to someone. He doesn't know how he's going to survive going back to that life. He's not sure he's surviving at all. He feels like he's been holding his breath since Izaya left.

He's grasping at straws, but he's desperate. So desperate...

When the door to Kishitani Shinra's apartment opens the doctor does a double take, "Shizuo?" he asks, worried.

"Shinra, I think there's something wrong with me..."

***

Shinra, to say the least, is ecstatic with the opportunity of getting his hands on Shizuo's medical history and records, as well as permission to take samples and perform tests, and so on and so forth. Shizuo wouldn't normally be able to withstand so much of his friend's annoying antics, but he's not feeling like himself. Not any longer.

Celty worriedly asks about what's wrong, but Shizuo has not the heart to tell her about it, not yet. He tries to reassure her, though, because she's something like his best friend, his confidant, and when he's ready he'll tell her the whole story.

He concedes only to blood tests for the time being. Next week a whole physical if Shinra can't find anything, though he complains that without a previous sample there's not much he can say. Irritated, Shizuo agrees to grant him access to his medical records.

His heart doesn't feel any lighter when he leaves, his skin still crawling where Shinra and Celty casually touched him.

***

He's about to go on a lunch break with Tom when it happens. He's just lighted up a cigarette, not even having taken a second, deep drag from it, when he hears Izaya's voice at his back.

"Ne, did you miss me, Shizu-chan~?"

His voice is airy, playful, and Shizuo's just... stuck. Frozen. All the blood in his veins is ice, the sudden sweat on his body feels cold, he's sure his face has lost all color. His heart feels painful, every heartbeat struggling to keep up with the vertiginous speed its picked up. It hurts to take the cigarette out of his mouth and breathe in; the pained, silent gasp makes his lungs feel like they're burning.

Shizuo looks to his side and sees a resigned expression on Tom's face, the nervous, exasperated people of Ikebukuro that realize the peace is broken again; the smug faces that tell Shizuo they were just waiting to see it break. He had never felt so much like a freak on display until this day, when he feels as if something just cracked his chest open and left his heart exposed for everyone to see.

It's all tangled up, all of his feelings conflicting, a mess.

His brow furrows, and he takes a moment to ignore everything outside himself; a moment to ignore the whispers and the voices and all of the people around, standing perplexed along with Izaya when he keeps standing stock still, motionless, unresponsive. He breathes deep and closes his eyes, thinking about Izaya, and realizes that under the pain and confusion the anger is absent and in its place there's just... relief.

He takes a deep drag of his cigarette and slowly turns around, releasing the smoke with a sigh full of that relieved feeling, now spreading through him. He's not sure what he's about to say, not after... well. But the words don't make it pass his lips.

"You look like crap," are the words leaving his mouth, and they are absolutely true. Izaya's impeccably dressed, as far as people are accustomed to see him, but his skin is sickly pale, dark circles under his eyes, which look dull without the spark of malice he tries to portray in the smirk of his lips.

Izaya's smile falters with Shizuo's uncharacteristic behavior.

"Tsk, is Shi-zu-chan not in the mood to play? How very boring~" Izaya says, the words are right, they are something he would say, but his heart is not in it, Shizuo can tell.

Shizuo sighs again, dropping his cigarette on the ground and stepping on it, "Are we really doing this?" he asks. He wants to know. He really wants to know if Izaya really wants things to go back to the way they were. If he is, Shizuo wants to make clear he's not interested in that anymore. Shizuo doesn't want to go back. He wants to keep going forward. Things that change have to keep going the way they become. Butterflies cannot go back to be caterpillars once they know how it feels to fly.

"Don't tell me you don't want to play anymore, Shizu-chan?" Izaya's voice is sharp, but there's confusion and trepidation in his eyes. Fear. Why is Izaya afraid?

Shizuo sighs again. He's beginning to feel frustrated, and he takes one of his hands up to his forehead, sinking a hand in his hair and gripping a bit. He growls softly, and the people still gathered around them startle, unable to look away from the bizarre spectacle they surely make.

"Are we _really_ doing this, Izaya? Here?" Shizuo asks again. It's always been a mystery to him the way Izaya's mind works. It's even more of a mystery now. What does Izaya want? He's not sure. He's only sure about what he, personally, wants.

"What are you talking about, Shizu-chan? I fail to understand what you mean. I'm always left mystified by the way your protozoic logic works," Izaya's nervous; _Shizuo_ is making him nervous. He doesn't know how he knows, how he's able to read Izaya's body language, Izaya's meaning behind his words and his way of speaking, the look in his eyes.

Shizuo has the upper hand, he realizes. Izaya's even more off-balance than him. Izaya doesn't know where they are going either, so he's afraid, desperate to go back to known ground.

Shizuo's tired of it. Shizuo's tired of their usual way of interaction. Isn't Izaya as well? Hadn't he said--?

"Ah," He says, quietly. "So that was it, then? That's what you meant..."

"What did you say? Speak up, Shizu-chan, it's rude to mumble." Izaya's smile is terse, a bit more tense around the edges; Izaya's temper is flaring, a surprising occurrence. Shizuo would say alarming, since Izaya isn't someone to have such loose a grip on his mask.

There's no synchronization anymore. Before this mess they seemed to be on the same page, despite their explosive antagonism. They both understood where they stood with each other. Shizuo hated Izaya and Izaya made Shizuo's life Hell on earth; that was normal. Routine. Familiar ground.

Shizuo realizes he has the power to decide if they go back to that. He has the power and Izaya is terrified, but still he wants to act as if nothing has changed. Is he... is he letting Shizuo decide?

His head is beginning to hurt.

"Tch," he clicks his tongue in irritation. He tilts his head a bit to the side, inquiring, and then back, challenging, before he begins to slowly walk toward Izaya.

Izaya steps back immediately, an irritated expression on his face flashing when he realizes his mistake; he betrayed his trepidation in front of the people still gathered, in front of Shizuo.

"Are you gonna run, Izaya?" Shizuo asks, head still held high, still issuing a silent challenge, and Izaya's whole body tenses, twitches with every step Shizuo takes, but he doesn't step back anymore. 

"I'm not afraid of the Big Bad Shizu-chan," Izaya says, bristling like an angry cat, teeth bared in an angry, humorless grin, pointing his flick-blade at Shizuo's chest.

When he's close enough, unconcerned by the blade pointed at him, Shizuo reaches out with his hand to hold onto Izaya's vulnerable wrist. Izaya flinches, betraying his unease again, and the flick-blade drops to the ground with a clatter, bouncing once and skidding away from where they stand.

"What the _fuck_ , Shizu-chan?!" Izaya exclaims, beginning to pull his wrist back, out of Shizuo's loose hold.

"You gonna run?" Shizuo asks again, and Izaya hisses up at him, outraged; Shizuo can see him readying the rant, a tirade, a torrent of verbal abuse building up in his brain, behind his red, furious eyes. There's nothing more razor-sharp than Izaya's wicked tongue when he's feeling threatened, Shizuo is beginning to realize. All the times Izaya's been the most hurtful, the most hateful and vile, it's when he's been in a situation out of his control.

Shizuo makes him feel powerless.

It's a sobering, relieving thought, since Izaya makes him feel powerless too.

Izaya's just opened his mouth to let the vitriolic words fly, but Shizuo calmly brings Izaya's hand up while he bends his head down, and bites on Izaya's ring, firmly, without biting Izaya's finger, and slowly pulls it off; Shizuo slowly smiles when Izaya chokes on his bitter, venomous words.

He lets Izaya's hand go, which falls limply to Izaya's side, and calmly reaches with his hand to take the ring between his teeth. He puts it on his pinkie, takes a cigarette and his lighter out and lights it up with a practiced, fluid motion, his new ring catching the light of the sun.

The quiet is only disturbed by a distant, excited cry of "OH MY GOD!"

"Shizu-chan...?" Izaya's voice is faint, and he's looking down at his hand, at the discolored band of skin around his naked finger.

"Yeah?" Shizuo says, exhaling a plume of pale smoke.

"Am I dreaming? Is this a dream?" Izaya's red eyes slowly rise up to look at him, looking into his eyes.

"No." Shizuo bluntly states.

"Is this a _joke_?" Izaya's voice grows even fainter, weaker; there's a queasy, self-deprecating twist to his newly attempted smirk.

"It's not," Shizuo says, shaking his head no, speaking softly. "Izaya..."

"... Yes?" The informant asks, warily.

"Go out with me?"

"... What?!"

Shizuo nods, assenting.

"What, _now_?!" Izaya asks, alarmed.

Shizuo pauses, another cry is heard at a distance "OH MY GOD, I _KNEW_ IT!!", and he turns to Tom and asks: "Can I have the rest of the day off, Tom-san?"

Tom nervously opens and closes his mouth a few times, croaking a faint, "Uh, sure... have fun...?"

Shizuo nods, dedicating a small, grateful smile to him. He turns to Izaya again and nods at him, "Yeah, now," He says.

"I... Shizu-chan, I..." Izaya is at a loss for words, floundering and lost looking. Shizuo has finally pulled the rug from under him and the only way it makes him feel is concerned.

He takes Izaya's hand in his own, lacing their hands together. Izaya startles again, staring mystified at their joined hands before looking up at Shizuo. "We don't have to go now," Shizuo says, "Just... come with me? Please?"

Izaya looks at him, still so nervous, unsure. Shizuo's not accustomed at all to see him so out of it. "I-- Okay..." he whispers and Shizuo can't stop himself from beaming down at him.

He ignores the gathered crowd that parts at their passing, ignores the joyous screams in the distance and begins to walk, taking Izaya with him, not letting go of his hand. He won't let him go after this. Not again. Not ever.

He softly squeezes Izaya's hand with his own, and his heart flutters happily when Izaya squeezes back.

  
  


***

They're cuddling on Shizuo's entirely too small couch. It's not meant for it, and they don't care. Izaya's on top of Shizuo, nestled between Shizuo's legs. They haven't taken their hands off of each other since they let themselves into Shizuo's apartment. Izaya seems especially adamant in not letting go of Shizuo's hand, stroking his thumb over the silver ring around Shizuo's pinkie.

"I can get you one that fits," he says, slowly bringing Shizuo's hand close enough to kiss it, softly, right over the ring.

"S'ok," Shizuo says, smiling down at Izaya. "I like this one."

"But it's a cheap trinket, Shizu-chan, it's not even silver! I toss them away once they begin to tarnish. I don't want... if you want to wear something of mine, then I want to give you something that'll last..."

"Oh?" Shizuo hums, contemplative, "So, if I wanted your coat, would you give it to me?" He's being playful, and Izaya makes a face at him, almost ready to burst in indignation for not taking him seriously... except Shizuo wasn't being flippant, not entirely.

"Are you serious?" Izaya asks, perplexed.

"Not really," Shizuo says, "You wouldn't be you without it, I'm just curious. I wanna wear it," He tells Izaya, leaning a bit down to whisper his next words in his ear: "I want you to fuck me wearing it."

"Nn, Shizu-chan, you tease..." Izaya hisses, cheeks beautifully tinting red, eyes beginning to smolder.

"It smells like you," Shizuo says, sinking his nose into the junction of Izaya's neck and shoulder, his scent mixing with the smell of his sweat and cologne, with fur and leather. _I missed it_ , he wants to say, but he's not sure if he should, not yet.

"Didn't you use to say I stink? Were you lying, Shizu-chan? Did you secretly have a fetish for my scent hidden away all this time?" Shizuo's a bit relieved to see Izaya being playful again.

"You did stink," Shizuo says, deadpan, and Izaya pouts at him. He sees no reason to lie, so he adds: "It's weird; it changed."

"Changed how? People's smells change all the time, Shizu-chan, something as simple as a new cologne that goes better with skin PH can make a huge difference," Shizuo lets Izaya elaborate while he tries to think of a way to explain the perceived change.

"I could always smell you," He begins. "I always knew when you were close because I could smell you."

"You-- really? Is that why you could always find me wandering about?" Shizuo hums an affirmative, "I thought it was just you trying to be witty, 'I knew I smelled a flea, rawr!'. Jeez, Shizu-chan, talk about being a bloodhound. Go on, then."

Shizuo chuckles at Izaya's impression, and nips at his white neck before continuing, "Since we met, actually. I know how you smell since then." Izaya makes a surprised sound, but doesn't interrupt again, "It never failed to rile me up. Not exactly in anger, I don't know how to explain it well, but you could say it was... Provocative?"

Shizuo pauses, ruminating his thoughts, looking for a better word.

"Sorry, I'm not good with words like you." He says, shrugging.

Izaya shakes his head, "No, I think I get it, Shizu-chan. Like expectation, right? Like anticipating a challenge. Like an annoying itch under the skin."

Shizuo nods, "Yeah, exactly. You made me feel restless, and the Haze blanketed everything else. I pushed and you ran away, made me chase, your scent all over the place... it drove me crazy. Yeah, that's what it was like, smelling you."

"The feeling was mutual, Shizu-chan," Izaya says, wryly. "You drove me crazier than anyone."

"Mm, I know," Shizuo replies. "But now... I like it. I don't feel I have to push anymore. I don't have to keep chasing. It feels like that, your smell. Like you belong. Here." He doesn't have to add the 'With me' that's in his mind. The way Izaya's body tenses, the hesitancy in his body language, tells him more than words could possibly express in this situation. He pretends not to notice, doesn't point out Izaya's unvoiced uneasiness and carries on, "I want it on my skin, your smell. Just the thought of it, Izaya..." Shizuo moans, softly, holding Izaya just a bit more tightly.

Izaya kisses him, deeply, drinking down Shizuo's hums and sighs, kissing down Shizuo's neck and sucking on the skin at the edge of his shirt. The bow tie is slowly untied and the buttons of his white shirt come slowly undone, one by one, leaving his neck accessible to Izaya's soft lips and teeth and tongue.

"It scarred..." Izaya murmurs, tracing the scar his bite left on Shizuo's neck with a fingertip, an indelible mark, just like the scar across Shizuo's chest.

There's something unsaid hanging in the air between them, getting heavier and heavier, but Shizuo doesn't know what it is. Doesn't know what to say to make the pressure of all the unsaid things weight less on them.

"Ne, Shizu-chan," Izaya calls, quietly, "It's weird, right? It's weird because I felt a lot of the things you describe. Even before I bit you. Before it changed me, this Haze of yours. Since... since we met, even... Don't you think it's too much to be a coincidence?"

"No, I think the same as you," Shizuo agrees, just as quietly, "I've been thinking about it since it happened."

"What does it mean?" Izaya asks, softly.

Shizuo sighs deeply, resting his cheek on Izaya's head, 'That maybe we're right for each other now,' Shizuo wants to say, and the words sound right in his head, feel right in his gut. "I don't know," he says instead.

He's about to speak when Shinra's ringtone intrudes, blaring, into their silence. Shizuo groans, because answering means he'll have to move and get up to get across the room to where he dropped off his cellphone, right beside his keys, on the small table by the entrance.

Izaya giggles at him, poking at his sides when he lets the phone ring and ring and ring. "Aren't you gonna get that, Shizu-chan?"

"Don't wanna," Shizuo mumbles. "Shinra's probably heard by now..."

"Heard what, Shi-zu-chan~?" Izaya's smug smile is wide across his lips, pleased like a well-fed cat, and his red eyes glint with evil glee at Shizuo's embarrassment, "That you asked me out in the middle of Sunshine Street in front of the lunch rush crowd? Hmm? That?"

"Ugh, shut up!" He mumbles, hiding his blushing face against Izaya's neck. "I can't believe I did that..."

Izaya chuckles, ruffling his hair, kissing his reddened cheeks and the crown of his head, "I can't believe it either, Shizu-chan," He whispers, tenderly, then ruins it when he adds: "I bet Karisawa couldn't believe it either..."

"Oh, please, shut up, Izaya," Shizuo's not ashamed to admit he whines, pleadingly.

An unknown ringtone startles them, and then Izaya sits up, straddling Shizuo's legs, to rummage in one of his pockets.

He looks at the display, a wicked smirk spreading across his face, and his red, mischievous eyes pin Shizuo in place, like a deer in the headlights. He slides his thumb across the screen and speaks.

"Hey there, Shinra."

"Hello, Izaya," Shinra cheerfully replies, and Shizuo realizes Izaya put the call on speaker. "Say, can you tell me why Celty told me to contact you, when I asked if she knew where Shizuo might be? He's not answering his phone."

"Oh, my, is Shizu-chan missing?" Izaya says, smiling with an evil edge to his lips, and begins rocking his hips, grinding down on Shizuo's lap. "I wonder why she would say such a thing, Shinra."

There's a pause from Shinra's side, but Shizuo barely notices. He's holding onto Izaya's swaying hips, trying to plead with his eyes for him to stop, but unable to stop his own body from responding to Izaya's rhythm. He clamps a hand over his mouth, biting at his fingers to try and stop the moans that want to break out under Izaya's smoldering gaze and sinful smile.

"Jeez, Izaya, please don't play around. Do you really know? It's important!" Shinra says, he sounds mockingly exasperated, like he's willing to play along with Izaya if it'll get him the information he wants.

"Hmm~" Izaya hums, mock thoughtfully, deftly untucking Shizuo's shirt and sliding his free hand under it, palming at Shizuo's quivering abdomen, fingertips teasing the edge of a sensitive nipple. "I don't know, Shinra... what makes you think I have any kind of inkling about Shizu-chan's mysterious whereabouts, mm~? I'm not Shizu-chan's keeper, you know? Don't make me sound like a stalker~"

"Dammit, Izaya!" Shinra's raised voice takes Shizuo and Izaya both by surprise. Izaya stills his teasing motion and exchanges a wide-eyed stare with Shizuo. "I need to find him. Do you know where he is?"

"Shinra..." Izaya tries to gain his attention, but Shinra seems to be already riled up.

"Does it have something to do with you why he's not answering his phone?" Shinra demands to know.

"I-- kind of, but--" Izaya tries to speak, but Shinra doesn't give him the chance.

"Where is he? Tell me, right now," Shinra says, dead serious, and Shizuo exchanges a worried glance with Izaya, "Dammit, Izaya, he might be sick!"

It's like a bucket of ice cold water being thrown on them.

"What do you mean, Shinra?" Izaya's voice would sound emotionless if not for the perilous edge in it, sharp enough through the phone to make Shinra take notice of it and pause.

"Aw, jeez," Shinra says, and Shizuo can almost see him rubbing at his head, an apologetic grin on his face, "I shouldn't have said that to you..."

"Shinra," Izaya tries to interject, but Shinra ignores him again and carries on.

"Never mind, never mind!" Shinra exclaims, cheerily, backpedaling, and Shizuo can clearly see Izaya about to lose his temper. 

"Shinra," Shizuo says aloud, interrupting both the underground doctor and the informant. He covers his eyes in mortification at the resulting silence.

"Eh? Shizuo?" The doctor inquires.

"... Yeah," Shizuo mutters. "What did you want?"

"... What are you doing at Izaya's place? Were you fighting? Jeez, you two!"

"Fighting is one way to call it," Interjects Izaya, slyly.

"We're not at Izaya's!" Shizuo says at the same time, flustered.

"... Eh?" Shinra says. "What--"

"Never mind!" Shizuo exclaims, covering Izaya's mouth when the informant looks about to keep playing with their poor doctor friend. "What did you want to tell me? What did you find?"

There's a long pause from Shinra's side, then a long, heavy sigh. "I think you need to come here, so I can explain better."

"Okay," Shizuo says, quietly.

Izaya hangs up with a swipe of his thumb, and grips the cell phone tightly in his fist, plastic creaking. Shizuo wonders if he's resisting the urge of throwing it at the wall and hearing it satisfyingly crack, if he's resisting the urge to stomp it into the ground, breaking it into bits under his heels.

Shizuo takes the phone away from him and wraps his arms around Izaya, hiding his face against the brunet's chest. Izaya's arms close tightly around him, and his hands cling to him.

Shizuo doesn't hold as hard as he wants to. He can't.

***

Izaya convinces Shizuo to dress casually so they can hire a cab to Shinra's; their ride is spent in silence and Izaya clings onto Shizuo's limp hand all the way there. Shizuo's afraid to hold Izaya's hand back, afraid he might break it. There's a knot churning in his gut, apprehension tight in his throat. He's afraid of what Shinra might have found.

"We're here, Shizu-chan," Izaya whispers.

Shizuo waits on the curb while Izaya pays the cab, Shinra's apartment building looming overhead. Izaya quietly stands by his side while Shizuo's thoughts tumble and tangle around inside his head. Izaya touches his slender hand to Shizuo's own, caressing his palm and carefully tangling their fingers in a loose hold.

"Come on, Shizu-chan," Izaya says, voice quiet.

Shizuo swallows around the lump in his throat, silently nods and lets Izaya pull him along.

Up they go and anxiously stand in front of Shinra's door.

Celty opens the door, her demeanor subdued, then surprised at seeing Izaya by Shizuo's side, then flustered when taking note of their entwined hands. They stand by the door, and Shizuo fidgets, feels his face flush hotly while she looks to and fro between him and Izaya, and Shizuo can only answer the inquisitive tilt of her neck with a sheepish smile and a helpless shrug of one shoulder.

"We'll talk later, OK?" Shizuo tells her, "Shinra must be waiting..."

She jumps and quickly steps aside to let them in. Shizuo and Izaya sit down on a couch in the living-room and wait for Celty to come back with Shinra in tow.

"Why does Shinra think you're sick, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks. Shizuo tightens his hold on Izaya's hand a fraction, still afraid to hold on too tight.

"I thought something was wrong with me..." He answers, somber, "I felt weird. Wrong. Bad. Couldn't sleep. I... I was kinda desperate..." He closes his eyes, and Izaya brings his hand to Shizuo's face, cupping Shizuo's cheek and bringing their foreheads together.

"... I'm sorry..." Izaya whispers.

"What for?" Shizuo replies in kind, a whisper in the quiet room just for their ears.

"... Leaving..." Izaya says, eventually, almost soundlessly.

"You had to," Shizuo tells him, but when he looks into Izaya's eyes Izaya looks ashamed. "Didn't you?"

Izaya bites his lip, "I ran away... And everything felt wrong. Bad. And I couldn't sleep..." Shizuo stares at him, Izaya's hesitant words sinking in, "Too much of a coincidence, don't you think?"

"What are you saying?" Shizuo asks.

"I don't know," Izaya answers, a frustrated curl to his lips, "I hate that I don't know, Shizu-chan. But I can't stop thinking it can't just be a coincidence. It..."

"It doesn't feel like one," Shizuo finishes for him. Izaya looks into his eyes, steadily, and nods.

"Shizu-chan..." Izaya begins, faltering, "What if it's my fault?"

Shizuo's immediate impulse is to shake his head, a negative readily on his lips. "You can't know that."

"I feel I can't know _anything_ !" Izaya growls, standing up and pacing away from the couch. "I hate, hate, _hate_ it! It's fucking annoying!"

Shinra chooses that moment to join them, Celty trailing in behind him. "Wah, Izaya, you're not making Shizuo lose his temper, are you?"

"It wouldn't be any of your business if I was!" Izaya seethes, surprising everyone else present. "Don't you have something important to say? Say it already and stop wasting time."

"Uh, Izaya," Shinra calls.

"What?" Izaya snaps.

"I can't say anything with you here, it's confidential!"

Izaya's face hardens, his eyes darken, and Shizuo clearly sees his jaw clench tight. Izaya takes a menacing step toward Shinra, "Listen, Shinra..."

"Anyway you shouldn't even be here, so why don't you go-- woah!"

It's only Celty's sharp reflexes what saves Shinra from Izaya's thrown flick-blade. The informant is shaking in anger, his expression fierce, eyes flashing, "I'm not leaving!" Izaya exclaims, "You can't make me leave!"

After the initial surprise, Shizuo jumps to his feet and crosses the small distance between them, ignoring Shinra's distressed "Please don't destroy anything, Shizuo! Celty, stop them!"

"Izaya," Shizuo says, and the anguished eyes that turn in his direction tug at his heartstrings. Izaya reaches his hands to clutch at Shizuo's shirt, stepping close, without taking his eyes away from Shizuo's.

"I'm not leaving, Shizu-chan," Izaya insists, "I'm not!"

Shizuo places his hands over Izaya's, gently. "I know," he says. Izaya hides his face against Shizuo's chest, hands still clenched tight, and Shizuo sinks one of his hands in Izaya's hair, carding through the ink black tresses.

He turns to Shinra and Celty's direction, "Let's get this over with, OK?"

"My, I'm obviously missing something, am I not?" Shinra says, confused, but gently smiling at them.

"You're always missing things," Izaya grumbles, still clinging to Shizuo.

"Mm, maybe so," Shinra concedes, "But didn't I make a good guess when I introduced you two, then?" His grin is wide, his eyes sparkle. "Ah~ after all these years you finally found some common ground, yeah?"

Shizuo can almost feel Izaya bristling under his hands, so he decides to put a stop to it before the two can even start. "Stop it," is what he says, calmly. The surprising thing is: Izaya does, he relaxes against him with a 'Hmph', still hiding his face from everyone, and Shinra is left with a retort dying in his open mouth.

"Stop provoking him," Shizuo tells Shinra, "And tell me the fucking news already."

"Well... Sit down, then."

They do. They sit in silence in Shinra's small living room, Shizuo and Izaya side by side in the larger couch, Shinra in the single couch, Celty standing behind him, her body language uneasy.

There's a long silence. "So?" Izaya prompts, impatient.

"I looked through Shizuo's medical records but, sadly, they are quite old. It seems like you stopped going into hospitals and didn't even go for yearly check-ups since you were... about fourteen years old?" Shinra aims the question at Shizuo, who nods in assent.

"I don't get sick," Shizuo says, shrugging with one shoulder, "And if I needed anything I could come to you."

"You didn't use to, you mean," Shinra corrects, "or you wouldn't have come to see me, right? You didn't want to discuss your symptoms or why you had the suspicion of being sick, but you wouldn't be able to say you feel sick with certainty, am I wrong?"

Shizuo sighs, "No, you're not wrong," he says.

"I've got results that from someone else would be cause for concern, Shizuo, if not alarm. I need you to tell me what happened before you came to me, when it started and anything you felt even remotely different than the norm."

Shizuo's heartbeat thrums in his eardrums, in his throat, in the wrist Izaya's clutching hard enough to bruise. "I..." He licks his dry lips, feels his face blazing with the heat of a fiery blush, and his gaze turns toward Izaya, silently asking for support, for guidance. "Do I tell...?" He quietly asks.

Izaya sighs, shooting an annoyed look at Shinra, and carding a soothing hand through Shizuo's hair. "Seems we have to," he tells Shizuo, "Too many things have changed already."

Shizuo nods, "Okay," he acquiesces, "It's just fucking embarrassing to say..." He mumbles, hiding his face against Izaya's neck.

"Do you want me to begin?" Izaya asks, encircling Shizuo's waist with his arms and lacing his hands behind him, resting them on Shizuo's lower back, encouraging Shizuo to curl his body even closer. If they continue like they are they'll end up full on cuddling on Shinra's couch, with Shinra and Celty still watching. The thought it's mortifying but, strangely, openly being with Izaya like this, he doesn't mind too much.

Shizuo nods, still hiding in Izaya's embrace, and feels Izaya rest his chin on Shizuo's shoulder, turning his head a bit to look in Shinra and Celty's direction.

"So, a little over a month ago, Shizu-chan finally managed to catch me," he begins.

"Really?" Shinra asks, surprised and amused, Shizuo can tell by his voice. "Were you off your game, Izaya?"

"Shut up, Shinra," Izaya sighs, in mock exasperation; Shizuo can almost feel him rolling his eyes, "I'll have you know Shizu-chan managed to do it fair and square, so I panicked and bit him. It was in the neck, and I bit hard enough to draw blood, which I swallowed."

"I was pretty banged up after I managed to escape from Shizu-chan's grasp, bruises and scrapes, mostly, so I didn't think too much of it when I woke up to a mild fever the next day." Izaya makes a pause, maybe to wait for a sign Shinra and Celty are listening, and shortly after he continues, "The thing is, it didn't just stay a mild fever. I was in pain, I felt like I was burning up, and most puzzling of all, was the way I couldn't stop wanting to go looking for Shizu-chan, to find him and-- and stay, I guess..."

"Stay?" Shinra asks.

"With him..." Izaya mumbles.

"Ah..." Is all Shinra replies.

"I felt like that, too. Kind of... " Shizuo adds, "I felt like I was burning from the inside, and my stomach cramped, everything hurt like broken bones, and the thing I wanted most was to see Izaya..."

Izaya sighs, and resignedly says, "So I gave in and went to see Shizu-chan nine days after I bit him, I sneaked into his apartment in the middle of the night and demanded answers, which I didn't get I might add, and, well..."

"We fucked," Shizuo finishes for him.

"I see..." Shinra replies. He adds, happily: "Finally!"

Izaya sputters in indignation, "What do you mean 'finally'?!"

"Please, Izaya," Shinra says, cheerfully, "I still remember how you, oh-so-casually wanted me to introduce you to Shizuo, mere curiosity, you said, and after _that_ little disaster is hard not to notice the way you've spent the last years acting like a scorned teenager."

"Hmph," Izaya huffs instead of replying. He had admitted as much to Shizuo, so maybe that's why he doesn't protest too much, Shizuo thinks.

"Anyway," The informant says, "Back on topic: that's not all."

"I figured there must be more to it," Shinra quips, "Otherwise I doubt I would be hearing about your love life."

"Jeez, I'm supposed to be the asshole smart-ass in here, Shinra! Stop interrupting! Shizu-chan, you tell it from here, he's making me lose my patience! Ugh!"

Seamlessly, their positions are swiftly reversed, and Shizuo finds himself accommodating a sulking, adorably pouting Izaya on his lap, his slender arms still wrapped around Shizuo. Shizuo slides a hand down Izaya's back, a calming caress, and nuzzles at Izaya's dark hair, softly pressing his lips in a brief kiss to his temple. He feels Izaya relax against him, so he gathers his wits about him to continue the embarrassing recount of their circumstances.

"The thing is, Shinra, we didn't just fuck: we were at it for three days straight," The doctor's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "We went at it until we couldn't anymore, passed out, and then continued after waking up, we barely stopped to eat or get cleaned."

"Can you tell me anything else about it?" Shinra asks.

"Dunno," Shizuo says, "Like what?"

"What did it feel like? Were you both lucid? How much do you remember?"

"It felt like a fever, like fire inside my bones that flared up the closer Izaya was to me. The first time it's hazy in my mind, too intense, couldn't, um, bear the-- the pleasure... but I can remember everything..." Shizuo's voice quietly trails off.

"And you, Izaya?" Shinra turns to the informant.

Izaya sighs, "Yeah, that's pretty much what it felt like. And I also have a clear, near perfect recall of... everything."

"Okay," Shinra says, "Anything else?" He asks.

There's no way for Shizuo to hide the immediate, bright blush that rises up his cheeks. Shinra looks at him and raises his eyebrows, but Shizuo doesn't say anything.

"It's up to you," He tells Izaya.

Izaya tightly closes his eyes and covers his face with both hands. He curses under his breath and with a muffled voice he says: "And I seem to have a knot now. Which I discovered when I tied with Shizu-chan. There! That's all! Ask no more questions, for the love of everything inhuman you have ever loved!"

"A kn-- do you mean a bulbus glandis? Like canines?"

"Didn't I tell you not to ask?!" Izaya exclaims.

"Can I see--?"

Shinra doesn't even get to finish before he has to dodge the coffee table Shizuo throws at him.

" _Don't_ say that to my lover," Shizuo says, "Or I'm not holding back, Shinra, friends or not," Shizuo then sits on the couch and pulls Izaya closer again.

Izaya stares with wondering eyes at Shizuo, and then turns to look at their doctor friend. Shinra is standing up, Celty giving him a hand, writing something for him to read.

"It was just scientific curiosity, Celty! You must know I meant nothing by it, right, Shizuo-kun? That's why you stopped, isn't it?" Shinra asks.

"What do you mean?" Shizuo asks and Shinra looks at him with a confused frown.

"Shizu-chan doesn't take too much notice on such things, Shinra," Izaya says, "You'll have to specify."

"You got angry at me, but not too much, so you stopped with just throwing the coffee table, right?"

Shizuo looks at his friend in sudden understanding, "Oh..." he says, softly. "I wasn't angry," he says, with wonder, and looks at Izaya with eyes open wide, a painful, hopeful feeling swelling in his chest. "Izaya, I didn't get angry," he says, hushed, afraid of speaking out loud, as if speaking too loudly would somehow negate reality and make his words not true.

"Feels good, ne, Shizu-chan?" Izaya smiles at him, tenderly ruffling Shizuo's hair.

"But you threw the coffee table..." Shinra remarks, intruding in their cozy moment.

"Yes," Shizuo affirms, "But that was because you asked to see my lover's dick."

"Merely scientific curiosity I said! Celty, don't laugh at me!"

"Ne, Shinra," Izaya says, "Aren't you protesting too much? I didn't know you had those kinda feelings for me. Courier-san, I would seriously consider having an honest, open conversation with Shinra, maybe discuss your preferences and things like that, ne?"

"Jeez, Izaya! Don't give my lovely Celty weird ideas! Celty, you know you're the only one I'm interested in seeing nake--urk! Not the solar plexus, Celty--ack!"

Shizuo and Izaya watch the spectacle their friend is making of himself for a little while. Shizuo, once again, is the one looking to accommodate his larger frame in a small enough configuration to be comfortably held by Izaya. He settles with Izaya's arms around him, one of them rubbing the back of his neck, playing with his hair. Shizuo clutches at Izaya's v-neck under his coat, his hands still trembling slightly after the revelation.

"Are you finished?" Izaya interrupts their friends, "Didn't you have something important to let us know? Are you just wasting our time?" Izaya's voice has a cold, deadly edge to it, "You're messing with Shizu-chan's well-being, Shinra. Maybe Shizu-chan seems to have found a balance point, but me? Let's just say I've been a little bit more temperamental lately."

Shinra wheezes and sits across them on the single-couch. He rubs at the places Celty hit and sighs. "Right to the point, then? I need to take an ultrasound of Shizuo-kun's prostate to discard the possibility of cancer."

Izaya's hands freeze, everything seems to freeze.

"But," He continues before they have the chance to say anything, before they can react, "You've described having experienced physiological changes in the last month, crazy as they might sound for anyone else, but I hope they are the cause of the results I got from Shizuo-kun's blood sample." Shinra steeples his hands together, leaning in their direction, "I'd still like to be sure, of course, if I'm not overstepping some kind of boundary, ne, Orihara-kun, Shizuo-kun?"

"How soon can you have everything ready?" Izaya finally asks.

Shinra smiles, widely, "I was hoping you'd ask."

***

The ultrasound is uncomfortable; Shinra says the alternative involves needles.

Shizuo almost prefers the needles.

Izaya hovers protectively, possessively, while Shinra does the preparation. Shizuo just closes his eyes and focuses on Izaya's hands on his shoulders, the comforting weight and heat of them, because he never expected to have anything up his butt at the end of this day, except for Izaya's cock. Especially not an ultrasound probe. Shinra's touch is clinical and detached, but Shizuo still feels his skin crawling nonetheless, and it's only because of Izaya's presence and touch that he's able to endure the procedure.

It's a relief to hear everything seems to be in order, normal. Shinra still insists on more tests, he talks about genetic make-up and strands of RNA and Izaya cuts him short with a couple curt sentences. Izaya tells Shinra to contact a Nami-something-or-other, to ask for the results of tests he already had.

"You'll find I'm a healthy, average human male," Izaya says, his smile tense, "And you know my testosterone tends to be on the middle to low side of normal, on a good day, right?" He waits for Shinra to nod in agreement, "Well you'd be wrong in this instance, because my testosterone has been barely within the acceptable maximum. Think about that, ne?"

They agree to come back for a checkup every month, just in case, and they promise to keep a record of any perceived change. Shizuo is unprecedented, so what happened between them is unprecedented too. Shinra promises to help them in any way he might be able to, and Shizuo can't help but feel grateful, despite the annoyances and frustrations his unique existence entails.

By the time they leave Shinra's place, Shizuo's exhausted. He's tempted to walk home, because if he gets in a cab right now he'll surely fall asleep. He's about to open his mouth to tell Izaya, but Izaya looks at him, face solemn, eyes a bit nervous, and takes his hand. "Come home with me, Shizu-chan," he says, quietly, but the look in his eyes makes his words a question more than a request.

"Okay," Shizuo says. It's the only possible answer, really.

***

As predicted, Shizuo falls asleep in the cab. He wakes up enough to cooperate with getting out of the taxi and getting into an apartment, out of his clothes and into a bed; he doesn't know how much time transpires before he feels Izaya sliding under the sheets with him, and he wastes no time curling himself around Izaya's body, settling himself, and falling into a deep, deep sleep.

He wakes up warm and content, the soft pink light of early sunrise spilling through the window. Izaya is burrowing under the covers of a spacious bed; Shizuo can't remember the last time he slept on a bed in which he could actually fit, no dangling feet, not having to curl in an uncomfortable hunch. He's tempted to keep snuggling under the covers, but he knows his stomach will soon start asking for food, probably quite loudly, given that he's not eaten much since yesterday.

He gets off the bed, Izaya's dead to the world and doesn't even stir, and Shizuo lets a relieved sigh escape before he goes off to explore Izaya's place in search for breakfast.

The apartment is all cream colored walls and warm wood panelings and floors. The light of the sun makes everything glow honey-colored, and the big couch in the small living-room looks plush and inviting. There's a built-in kitchen in an adjacent room, and despite its pristine condition the fridge and cupboards are fully stocked.

He ponders breakfast for a while, because he has a craving for sunny-side-ups, but he's never had the patience to make them. He's never had patience enough _before_ , so maybe...

Half an hour later he ends up with two sunny-side-up eggs, just how his mom used to make and once tried to teach him, crispy edges and still soft yolk. His heart is pounding and the feeling of painful hope that swells in his chest leaves him short of breath. He feels like crying, like screaming, like laughing hysterically.

He opts for breathing deeply a couple of times and making coffee.

He eats, slowly, washes the plate and fork he used, pours a coffee for himself (a lot of milk and two sugar spoonfuls) and one for Izaya (just coffee, black, aromatic and bitter).

He returns to the bedroom, sits beside Izaya, and sneaks a hand under the covers to coax Izaya awake.

"Nnnnghhnnmph, Sh'zu-ch'n..." Izaya whines, the sound muffled.

"I brought coffee," he informs the lump that is his lover under the covers.

A tousled head emerges from under the sheets, and bleary, russet eyes turn to him. Izaya’s hand reaches for the coffee cup and Shizuo takes advantage of this to capture Izaya's lips in a deep, dizzying kiss that leaves them panting when it breaks.

Shizuo licks his lips, noting how Izaya's red eyes follow the movement of his tongue, and says, "Here," placing the warm cup of coffee in one of Izaya's hands.

"Careful" Izaya says, "I could get used to this wake up call, Shizu-chan," he mumbles into his cup, cheeks red with the warm beverage (and maybe something more, Shizuo wants to believe). "I should make you take responsibility..."

"Maybe you should," Shizuo retorts, and Izaya sputters, choking with the coffee. Shizuo gives Izaya a few pats in the back while the brunet coughs to clear his airways.

"So mean, Shizu-chan~" Izaya whines.

"My bad," Shizuo says, unapologetic.

"You will force me to take retaliating measures," Izaya informs him. "My vengeance will be swift and merciless, Shizu-chan."

Shizuo lets a slow, feral grin spread across his lips, he leans close to Izaya's ear and answers: "I'll look forward to it," He purrs, delighted at the shiver that travels down Izaya's body, at the curious red eyes that look at him like they've never seen him before. Which might be true, since Shizuo has never felt like this before, so full of hope.

"Someone seems to be in a good mood," Izaya observes, his eyes focusing much more intently on him, with laser-like intensity, an almost obsessive regard. It makes Shizuo's skin prickle with heat, the low burning embers of desire sparkling in the marrow of his bones.

Shizuo licks his lips again, and Izaya doesn't miss one second of it; the fire fans higher, "Are you having breakfast?" Shizuo asks.

"I might be having _you_ for breakfast, Shizu-chan, for being an incredible tease," Izaya smirks at him, his eyes heavy-lidded, his voice growing rougher with every word, "Or is that what you were aiming for, hmm? Are you eager for me, Shizu-chan?"

"Yeah," Shizuo whispers breathlessly in answer, leaning in close to kiss Izaya's lips again. "I want you; I haven't stopped wanting you.”

"Want me to take you, Shizu-chan? Hold you down and fill you up again and again?" Izaya's voice is a filthy purr that makes him shiver all over, his body heating up in delighted anticipation.

"Please..." Shizuo moans quietly, leaning even closer to Izaya.

"Or," Izaya drawls the word in the same purring way, "You might like it if we change things a bit, maybe? Try something different, something we haven't tried yet..."

"Like what?" Shizuo asks, intrigued by Izaya's words, not quite knowing what to expect from his lover's devious machinations.

"Do you want to know how it feels to be inside me?" Izaya's eyes are bright like coals, and his voice is hypnotically soft, full of heat, "Want to know how you make me feel when I take you, when I make you come apart with pleasure, how sweet you are, my Shizu-chan... Would you take me just as I took you?"

"I--" Shizuo hesitates, briefly debating with himself if honesty is the best approach, quickly deciding it is; honesty is important in relationships, he's heard. "I wouldn't know what to do, to tell the truth."

"What do you mean, Shizu-chan? You've bottomed before, haven't you? Just do the preparation to me instead," Izaya says, matter-of-fact-ly.

The blond shakes his head in negative, "Just with you," Shizuo says, bluntly, "And I wasn't paying too much attention to what you were doing before getting inside me."

There's a brief silence before Izaya reacts to his words: a sudden intake of breath and an astonished expression, bright red eyes filling with wonder again.

"I was your first, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks, quietly.

"Yeah..." Shizuo whispers, shyly smiling; tender, fluttery feelings rioting in his chest; the pounding of his heart thrumming inside his chest, in his ears and his throat.

"Fuck," Izaya says, closing his eyes, "If you were anyone else I could have really hurt you, Shizu-chan..."

"You didn't," Shizuo reassures him.

"You're incredible," Izaya says quietly, barely a murmur, "You've ruined me for anyone else, you know?" He adds, voice playful, and a second later serious again, a myriad of facets for Shizuo to discover and learn to cherish, "So take some responsibility and make an honest man out of me, ne?"

Shizuo nods, "I will," he says, and there's the heaviness of a promise in his words.

"Oh, for the love of-- I give up!" Izaya exclaims, putting the coffee cup in the bedside table and letting himself fall back on the bed. "You will kill me with cuteness, Shizu-chan, you monster. And you'll be so earnest about it too..." He grumbles.

Shizuo shrugs, grinning good-naturedly at Izaya's ridiculousness. He decides it then, so he speaks up his mind, "Tell me how."

Izaya narrows his eyes at him, "How what? How you'll kill me with earnest cuteness?"

"No, idiot," Shizuo replies, delighted with Izaya's huffing like an offended cat, "Tell me how to fuck you, what to do to make it good for you. I want you, Izaya. All of you. Even the bad."

Izaya stares up at him for a long, long time, eyes bright and wide, a complicated mess of emotions plain in his whole face, in his body.

"If we don't work out after this, Shizu-chan, it’s going to kill us both. If you leave I will kill you and then I'll die..." his voice is quiet and matter-of-fact, no trace of doubt. "There can be no other after you. There's been _no other_ after you, you understand?"

"I get it," Shizuo answers, "I do," he insists when Izaya's eyes look intently into his own, "I'm not letting you go after this, Izaya. You'll be _mine_."

Izaya closes his eyes, a soft whimper leaving his chest, his pale skin flushing with heat, "Please," he begs, breathless, heavy with longing, as if being taken, being owned by Shizuo is all he's ever wanted.

Shizuo puts his cup away, too, and then proceeds to slowly take the blankets off Izaya, petting his mussed hair, kissing his hungry mouth and gently, gently, taking Izaya's clothes off, piece by piece, kissing and caressing every centimeter of skin that takes his fancy.

By the time Shizuo's taken Izaya's underwear off, and allowed himself to be distracted by mouthing at his ankles, Izaya's already been begging for Shizuo "Please, please hurry, please, Shizu-chan, please, please..."

Shizuo pets him, coos at him, and patiently waits for the edge of desperation to dull before continuing and Izaya resigns himself, surrenders to Shizuo's attentive ministrations, and moans approval and suggestions that Shizuo takes at his leisure.

After he's sucked a couple of bright purple bruises on the inside of Izaya's thighs he asks, "How do I prepare you?"

"L-lube, in the-- table... Use your, your fingers, loosen me up, open me up for y-you-uhnn..."

Shizuo finds the lube and follows Izaya's gasped instructions, pouring lube on two of his fingers and thoroughly coating them, feeling the texture of the lube, and carefully reaching between Izaya's butt cheeks, spreading the lube and carefully, slowly, pushing one of his fingers inside.

Izaya holds his breath and Shizuo makes a deep sound, it resonates deep in his chest. Izaya feels so incredibly tight around his finger, the slippery muscles seeming to cling to his finger when he takes it out to soon return, ready with more lube.

Izaya breathes encouragement, mewls his approval and moans more instructions for Shizuo to follow; when to add a second finger, how to use them to stretch him open, how to twist to find his prostate to make him arch and cry out in a hoarse shout of his name.

When Shizuo adds a third finger he stares, awed, almost mesmerized, because Izaya felt so tight and small and yet there are three of his fingers already inside, being swallowed up and clinged on, and soon Izaya starts begging again, almost sobbing, "Please, please, now please, Shizu-chan, I can't, I can't, I need y-you!"

"Shhh, shhh, okay, okay," Shizuo coos again, sofly, patiently bringing Izaya off the desperate high, "I'm ready for you, too, Izaya."

He is. He uses the lube on himself abundantly, he effortlessly hauls Izaya's hips up off the bed, draping Izaya's long, long legs over his shoulders and carefully, slowly, pushes inside Izaya's yielding body.

Izaya cries out in high-pitched, breathy Ahs, voice trembling and breaking, calling Shizuo's name over and over, words spilling from his mouth seemingly of their own volition.

"Shizu-- Shizu-cha-ahn, yeah, yeah, fill me up, spread me open, leave-- leave me feeling you-uh for days, yeah, please, please, faster, harder, ha-- harder, harder, please!"

But Shizuo is patient, knows he has to be careful or he'll hurt Izaya, so he reins in his urge to thrust, to abandon and lose himself in the pleasure and slowly takes them off the edge again.

Again and again and again, until Izaya is a quivering mess and every slow, measured thrust of Shizuo's hips, every caress and kiss and lovingly murmured word rips a hitching sob of pleasure from his reddened lips.

And finally, finally, when Izaya is boneless and pliant and so lost in pleasure even his words fail him, Shizuo lets go and keeps him in place while he speeds up, fucking into him harder and harder until they are both screaming.

Izaya claws at him, arching and twisting, but Shizuo's grip doesn't budge, and when he leans down to bite at Izaya's neck, almost folding the brunet in half, Izaya finally cannot hold anymore and goes off the edge. His muscles clench around Shizuo, so hard it's almost painful, and Shizuo cannot keep off the edge anymore either.

He holds himself on trembling hands, to avoid crushing Izaya's smaller frame, and slowly slides himself out of Izaya, carefully lowering him to the bed and unhooking his legs from his shoulders. They are both trembling, sweating all over, Izaya's belly and chest covered with come, his asshole sloppy with Shizuo's seed.

And Gods above, Shizuo loves him so much he really understands what Izaya meant, because he'll die without this, all that they have together. It should be terrifying... No, it _is_ terrifying, but he wouldn't, he will _not_ give it up, not for _anything_.

He lies beside Izaya, gathering him into his arms, caressing his cooling body, covering them with the bed covers, and waiting for the high to go down.

"I love you," Shizuo says, all the seriousness, all the honesty and conviction he's capable of in his voice.

It's the truth. It can't be anything else, there's nothing else strong enough, intense, crazy enough for this feeling to be besides love.

Izaya sinks his teeth into Shizuo's shoulder and clings like a man drowning would cling to a lifesaver; his shoulders shake with every ragged, desperate breath he takes, and warm wetness is soon falling on Shizuo, sliding down his skin. Shizuo patiently waits, and softly, gently, eases Izaya away from the edge again. And when his breathing has subsided into hiccups and soft hitches, Izaya whispers "I love you" back.

Shizuo smiles and says nothing, just kisses Izaya in the corner of the mouth. He strokes Izaya's back with slow, encompassing caresses, and quietly asks him to join him in a warm bath, so they can clean each other.

Izaya is quiet and pliant, and Shizuo can't help feeling a thrill of excitement when Izaya lets him do as he pleases with his body, holding him up, cleaning him inside and out, moaning and shivering inside the circle of Shizuo's arms.

Shizuo gets them both into the bathtub, and they soak in hot water until their skin prunes and the bathwater goes lukewarm. Shizuo dries them with huge, fluffy towels, and then gets them back to bed, to cuddle under the sheets.

They languish in bed, tangled in the sheets and around each other, lazily exchanging kisses and touches, until Izaya's stomach growls in hunger. Shizuo cajoles him out of bed with a promise of breakfast.

Izaya is a picky eater, Shizuo's not surprised to discover. At least the pantry and the fridge are well stocked, so it's not too difficult to find something Izaya will actually eat.

"I thought you couldn't cook, Shizu-chan," Izaya remarks, a bit curious and a bit surprised.

"I couldn't..." Shizuo whispers, acknowledging the unstated question behind Izaya's words.

Izaya eats in uncharacteristic silence, slow and methodical with each bite. There's a pleased air about him, Shizuo observes while drinking another coffee, the rioting butterflies in his chest make swallowing difficult.

"Are we in Shibuya?" Shizuo decides to ask, wanting to distract himself from the eerily comfortable quiet.

There's a pause from Izaya's eating, "Why do you ask?" Izaya responds.

Shizuo looks at him with a pointed look, "So I know how long it'll take to go back to Ikebukuro, why else?"

The hand holding Izaya's chopsticks tightens around them, and a sour look crosses Izaya's face. Izaya's lips are a tight line, slowly beginning to downturn at the corners.

"What's wrong?" Shizuo asks.

"We're not," Izaya says, barely above a whisper.

"Huh?"

"We're not in Shibuya..." Izaya says, not meeting Shizuo's eyes.

Shizuo stares at him in incomprehension. This must be Izaya's place, he's thinking, so they must be in Shibuya, right?

Izaya takes a look at Shizuo's face and lets out a heavy sigh, he drags a hand through his dark hair and says, quietly: "Look out the window."

"What?"

"Just... Go look outside, Shizu-chan, ok?"

Shizuo looks at him in silence, but after a beat his curiosity wins out. He stands up and closes the distance between the table and the closest window. He drags the curtains away and looks at the sunlit city landscape outside Izaya's apartment.

They're not in Shibuya.

He stares, not quite believing his eyes. "We're... this is Ikebukuro..." He looks back at Izaya. He doesn't know what to say. "Why?" He finally asks.

Izaya calmly, with deliberate care, places the chopsticks on the rim of his rice bowl; he places his hands on the edge of the table, fingers clenching on it. His eyes don't look away from Shizuo, and there's a heavy swallow down Izaya's throat before he speaks up, voice barely above a whisper: "Stay with me, Shizu-chan."

Shizuo stares at him, his brain struggling to catch up with Izaya's words, the disregard for his question and the reasons behind Izaya's quiet plea. His lips part, but there's no sound coming from his mouth, and the look on Izaya's face makes an alarm start ringing in the back of his head.

"Izaya...?" Shizuo whispers, not knowing why his heart is beginning to pound inside his chest, as if trying to burst out of his ribcage.

The look in Izaya's eyes is sharp, nothing escaping from his gaze, and the way he moves to stand up has the slow grace of a feline preparing to hunt. His movement to step away and circle the table, the steps taking him towards Shizuo are full of that predatory feeling, and Shizuo can't help but take an involuntary step back. Soon, he finds himself with his back to the wall, and Izaya calmly stalking closer to him.

"Are you running away, Shizu-chan?" Izaya's voice is deceptively calm, all sharp steel under the innocent curiosity in his tone.

Shizuo answers a silent negative with a shake of his head, heart still pounding in his chest.

Izaya places a hand on the wall besides Shizuo, leaning closer, his voice a smooth murmur: "Why did you retreat, then, I cannot _possibly_ be that scary, hm?"

"I don't know..." Shizuo replies. "You just make me want to do things I've never thought I'd want to do."

"Will you, then?" Izaya asks.

"Will I what?" Shizuo replies.

"Stay with me," Izaya murmurs, placing his free hand on the wall, on the other side of Shizuo's body, effectively trapping him, and leaning closer.

"Stay...?" Shizuo feels lightheaded, dizzy, as if drunk by Izaya's presence and voice and dangerous body language.

"Yes," Izaya insists, "Here, with me."

"Here...?" Nothing is making sense, Shizuo thinks, dazed.

"Anywhere you want, as long as you stay with me," Izaya urges, and it's this that makes the meaning behind all these words finally sink into Shizuo's brain.

"Live with...?"

"Yes!" Izaya interrupts, with vehemence. "That's why I bought this place, here, because I know you'll never feel okay with leaving Ikebukuro."

"Izaya..." Shizuo begins, but Izaya tramples on ahead.

"I don't want to be apart from you again, Shizu-chan, I won't be able to bear it again!"

"Izaya!" Shizuo raises his voice a bit, placing his hands on Izaya's shoulders to get his attention, trying to derail the brunet's increasingly agitated state.

"I will," he says, gently, tender feelings knotting in his throat, "I'll stay."

Really, what else is there to say?

Izaya's hands tangle in his hair, harshly pulling his head down to meet Izaya halfway into a fierce kiss, all teeth and tongue, and it's like kissing a live wire, Shizuo thinks, feeling a line of electric heat plunge down his body coming directly from Izaya's mouth devouring his.

Izaya bites a line of fire down Shizuo's neck, leaving behind a collar of lurid bruises blooming purple and scarlet on his skin, clear marks claiming Shizuo as his. Shizuo gives himself into it, letting Izaya move aside the fabric of his clothes to suck and bite the uncovered skin.

Shizuo can't believe how vocal Izaya makes him. He can't quite believe it's his own throat making all these sounds, uttering the filthy words Izaya makes him want to say, to scream.

"Fuck me, Izaya," Shizuo groans, pleads, when Izaya stops to divest him from his shirt, proceeding to torment his nipples with his wicked mouth, leaving them reddened and engorged with blood, throbbing and aching.

"You want it?" Izaya murmurs against his skin, lapping at Shizuo's hardened nipples with brief flicks of his tongue.

"Yes!" Shizuo gasps, moaning with each of Izaya's ministrations.

"How bad do you want me, Shizu-chan?" Izaya coos at him, "Enough to beg on your knees, spreading yourself open for me and asking for my cock to fill you up?"

Shizuo falls immediately to his knees, looking up into Izaya's smoldering red eyes and opening up the brunet's pants to take out his cock. Shizuo nuzzles at it, feeling the hot hardness against his face, his lips, his tongue darting out for a slow taste of Izaya's skin, Shizuo's eyes not leaving Izaya's, and he whispers, voice a low rumble: "Fuck me, Izaya, I want your cock inside me."

Izaya does.

He fucks Shizuo against the window looking out to the Ikebukuro city skyline.

***

Time seems to spiral out of Shizuo's grasp. Memories retained in his mind like faded snapshots of particular, single scenes:

He's moving in with Izaya; he's telling Kazuka, heart beating wildly inside his chest; he's calling his mother to ask for more recipes and household advice and they're both crying in the phone.

He's sleeping with Izaya in the same bed every night and kissing him goodbye before leaving for work every morning.

There's still guys looking for a fight, there's still people that don't know when to back down, but there's no more blackouts.

_There's no more blackouts._

Shizuo wonders if this is what the life he's always wanted is like, all of a sudden one morning, when he realizes his roots are beginning to show.

All in all, he's peripherally aware of Izaya making a nuisance of himself, prancing about in mischievous glee and poking around in people's lives, not letting any sleeping beings lie and taunting fate in the most Izaya-like way possible.

He doesn't question it like he might have done before. He realizes his previous involvements were because he couldn't just let Izaya _be_ ; now that he has him, now that Izaya is _Shizuo's_ , he finds he is a lot more pragmatic than he thought he was.

At least that's what Celty called him when Izaya asked them to distract a mob of red-eyed, crazy people armed with sharp, pointy things.

Time passes swiftly by, and yet, Shizuo's longing, Shizuo's _craving_ , for Izaya doesn't seem to mellow.

He feels insatiable, starving for Izaya's lips and tongue and cock. He goes down on him for what seems like hours on end, until he can drink down every drop of Izaya's cum, until Izaya sobs and squirms and cringes in over-stimulation; hands clenched tight in Shizuo's hair, begging, screaming, pleading for Shizuo to _please please oh oh can't-- don't-- don't stop Shizu-chan oh god--_

Shizuo loves the feeling of Izaya filling him up, coming inside him; the feel of Izaya's come dripping out of his well fucked hole. He loves the way Izaya makes him come undone with his long, long fingers, sinking in his sloppy hole and playing with him until they're both ready for round two, ready for a second filling of Izaya's come.

Izaya hasn't knotted since those first times and something feels missing, a sweet ache in the air between them every time it doesn't happen. Shizuo always kisses Izaya in reassurance, and Izaya's kisses always taste like disappointment and apologies.

Time flies by and the year mark passes almost unnoticed.

And then, Shizuo wakes up to the feverish ache of the Haze inside his bones, faint at first, almost dismissible except for the way it feels under his skin; a deep-seated thing, an itch, an anxious kind of feeling that makes Shizuo want to _do_ something, but unsure as to what exactly that something is.

He can’t ignore it, and with the passing days he’s not able to keep ignoring Izaya’s insistence they go to Shinra, even if Shizuo’s not sure what help that would be and makes a point of grumbling his misgivings, to Izaya’s utter amusement.

They go to Shinra, and Shizuo has to endure the endless litany of excited, overly technical, babble of his friend, Izaya hovering protectively every moment they spend humoring Shinra's need for samples and descriptions of possible symptoms. Shizuo's exhausted, yet weirdly keyed up, when they leave.

When they're finally back home, Izaya pounces on him as soon as the door to their place is locked. His kisses are hard, all teeth and tongue and desperation. Ravenous, devouring; Shizuo readily submits to Izaya's hungry mouth until it softens, sweetens; until Shizuo can feel Izaya's tension melting away, just as Izaya's whole body melts against his own. They kiss languidly, sweetly, all the way to their bedroom and fall asleep curled up to each other.

The painful heat of the Haze wakes Shizuo up in the early hours of the morning.

He feels hot all over; oversensitive. He feels sweat gathering under his hair, sliding down his face and neck and pooling at the hollow of his throat; he feels goosebumps rising down his skin at the touch of his heated skin with the cooler sheets.

The restlessness is sunk under his flesh, into his bones; he can distantly hear himself, his labored breaths and the soft sounds beginning to form deep in his chest.

He wants... 

His hands move on his own, down between his parting legs and reaching for his aching hole. There's a moment of fuzzy perplexity, fingers easily sliding on slicked, sensitive skin, and Shizuo has a second to wonder at this, but then there's two fingers easily sliding inside him.

He keens, arching into the feeling; two fingers becoming three, four, and they're not enough, not enough, not enough.

"Izaya, Izaya..." He moans, increasingly desperate with every second he can't seem to keep the feeling of emptiness, gnawing at him from the inside, at bay. He rocks into his fingers, whimpering at the aching feeling of hunger and dissatisfaction, desperate to fulfill the painful craving, but his dazed mind cannot go beyond the tortuous in and out of his own fingers. "Iza-- Izaya... Izaya... Please!"

There's a rustling of cloth and a groggy voice asking: "Shizu-chan?". Shizuo just whines and moans, Izaya's voice a calming balm and an enticement both.

Shizuo looks for Izaya's red eyes with his fevered own in the dim, gray-blue light of almost dawn, and pleads at him, parting his legs wider and using his fingers to spread himself open, slick and waiting, wanton, desperate for Izaya's cock. "Fill me up, Izaya," the words fall from his lips in breathy gasps, "Please, please, I need your cock inside me, fill me up, please, b-breed me--" His voice breaks in a high pitch moan, his back arches almost painfully, hands and feet digging into the mattress, holding on for dear life. Izaya's cock is a searing, burning line of fire sinking deep inside him, and Shizuo can feel it with each clenching spasm of himself around it.

"Did you come, Shizu-chan?" He hears Izaya's voice purr, dark with hunger, "I've never made you come dry before..."

Izaya stays still, waiting for Shizuo to ride out the wave of sudden pleasure before moving. He fucks into Shizuo without pause, without mercy, until all Shizuo can do is scream Izaya's name, pleading for more, more, harder, for Izaya to give him his knot and fill him up with come until he's swollen with it.

And it happens: Izaya's knot swells inside Shizuo until it feels like it'll rip him apart, making him scream himself hoarse with pleasure as Izaya fills him up with surge after surge of hot come; all the while Izaya keeps moving, grinding into Shizuo's abused hole, pressing his huge knot into every tender, sensitive spot inside Shizuo, every thrust getting slicker and slicker until Shizuo's so full the knot can't stop all of the come from seeping out.

It feels like hours until Izaya finally slows down, his whole body settling over Shizuo, quiet gasps falling from his mouth, slim frame still occasionally shuddering.

Kisses rain down all over his face; cheeks and eyelids, forehead and the corners of his lips. When Izaya finally kisses Shizuo's lips he lingers, slowly parting them with his tongue, deeply, leisurely drinking in Shizuo's happy sighs and soft moans.

Izaya settles over Shizuo, his weight comforting, warm and sticky with shared sweat and come; something inside him settles as well, and the painful ache inside his bones mellows, dissolves into the warmth of Izaya's mouth. Shizuo melts in Izaya's embrace, and the anxious tension finally fades.

They rest in the afterglow, in the temporary eye of this still puzzling storm, and prepare to weather the rest of it. Shizuo is, to be frank, looking forward to it.

***

They spend three more days in the Haze's grip, and afterwards they go to Shinra for more tests and blood samples and telling their friend everything they can remember. Shizuo still grumbles about it, but Izaya won't accept anything but acquiescence from him in this matter. It's a weird change, Shizuo thinks, the way Izaya has become quite obsessed with Shizuo's wellbeing, the way he's protective and possessive of him and Shizuo... something inside Shizuo purrs and melts in tenderness, because he's never had anyone besides family to want to care for him, to want to protect him, despite his almost invulnerability; there are those who worry about him, like Tom and Celty, but it's not the same.

Shinra hums and makes pondering noises, but ultimately waves them goodbye with a distracted air. They know he can conjecture at the best of times, and is not shy to share his theories, but Shizuo is still exhausted and Izaya is still a bit overprotective, and they leave. If something comes up, either Celty or Shinra will be sure to get in touch.

Life returns to normal by the end of the week.

***

Izaya's knot doesn't disappear again. It's a nice surprise.

It's not such a nice surprise to discover Izaya has Celty's head, but Shizuo supposes it could be in worse hands, especially when Izaya convinces him Shinra is aware of it and wouldn't like them interfering in his convincing Celty she doesn't need it. Shizuo reluctantly concedes to let the matter drop.

Shizuo is not too accustomed to being aware of the global news, to be honest he barely notices anything of worth in Ikebukuro, though he certainly is aware of the most loud rumors and gossip. He, frankly, is glad to see his fearsome reputation is becoming a thing of the past. It's quite a surprise to stumble across those kids, the Dollars leader (Ryuugasaki?), the blond one and their girl-friend, in an alleyway past sundown; it's quite a surprise to see them exchange kisses with each other, to see Ryuugasaki biting on the blond kid's neck until he bleeds, to see the way the boys melt into each other before seamlessly including their girl-friend (girlfriend?) in the kisses and caresses.

"Does it remind you of that night, Shizu-chan?" He hears Izaya whisper in his ear, wrapping his arm around him and pulling him against his chest. Shizuo rumbles a moan when Izaya nuzzles the scar of his bite.

"What do you mean?" Shizuo whispers, resting his head back on Izaya's shoulder.

"When I bit you the first time," Izaya says dragging his teeth over Shizuo's arched neck, "What we did after... Would you feel less lonely if it was normal, Shizu-chan: what we do, what we are?"

"Izaya..."

"Would you be happy to know our blood can change the world?"

Shizuo turns around in Izaya's embrace, capturing the brunet's lips in a hungry kiss. "Let's go home," Shizuo says, panting against Izaya's wet mouth, "I want your knot inside me."

They make it a race across the rooftops, all the way to their apartment. This time Shizuo makes Izaya chase _him_ down.

***

Izaya wakes up before him in the morning, and Shizuo stirs into wakefulness when he can smell breakfast cooking and coffee brewing. His stomach roils, flips around inside him and Shizuo barely manages to race to the bathroom before violently throwing up.

"Shizu-chan...?" Izaya stands outside the bathroom, staring at the door wrenched out of its hinges, at Shizuo heaving his guts out. Only a moment though, and then he's slowly rubbing Shizuo's back and neck, his hands cool and soothing.

"Shinra?" Shizuo manages to croak when the nausea recedes to manageable levels.

"I'll call a cab," Izaya says.

Uneasiness almost makes Shizuo sick again.

***

Celty and Izaya hover and coddle Shizuo, bringing him tea to settle his stomach, sitting beside him, petting his hair. Shinra took blood samples and asked questions, and said some of the fastest tests would shed some light on the situation.

Shizuo doesn't know how long it is before Shinra comes back, contemplative, and insists on a quick ultrasound. Shizuo protests about having anything but Izaya's cock up his ass, or maybe toys, maybe?, but Shinra is not going near his ass again. Shinra insists it's not a prostate ultrasound but a normal one this time, and Shizuo grudgingly, resignedly, gives up and accedes to it.

Izaya and Celty keep hovering, trying to keep Shizuo calm. As if a little nausea compares to torn muscles and broken bones. He likes the attention, though. Makes him feel cared for.

There's a gasp from Shinra, a smile forming on his face.

"What is it?" Izaya demands.

"I think congratulations are in order, Shizuo-kun, Orihara-kun!" Shinra says, the way his eyes sparkle is foreboding, "You're pregnant!"

***

There are almost-fainting and screaming and frantic questions asked and... Shizuo blocks it out for a bit. Shinra's gleeful voice and Izaya's angry, frantic one are background noise. Celty sits beside him on the living room's couch.

[Are you okay?] She asks.

Shizuo looks down at his stomach, the place the ultrasound wand was when Shinra made the announcement; Shizuo hadn't noticed his own hand rubbing circles over it.

"I don't know," he whispers.

[You will be,] She says.

"How do you know?" Shizuo asks.

[Because of who you are,] She types, [Who you *both* are.] She pauses, hesitating a moment before adding: [I'm so *jealous*...] Shizuo startles at that, but doesn't get to ask why before she continues, [You get to have this... precious gift with Izaya. I'm not sure I'll ever get to have something like this with Shinra. You are so lucky, Shizuo, and I'm *so happy* for you...]

Shizuo hugs her, tightly, and she shakes against him. He wonders if the head Izaya has at his place in Shibuya is crying too right now.

\---

Izaya will change the world for Shizuo.

He's already started, in fact.

There is a shock-wave, a ripple of change and Shizuo and Izaya are at the center of the imminent, spiraling storm about to sweep over the world. Shizuo can feel it in Izaya's glee, in the protective, possessive light of his eyes, in the curve of the smile on his lips when he tells Shizuo about how they are the first, the Alpha and the Omega, and how there will be more to come; in the tender way he tells Shizuo how he'll provide a world where their children are not the exception but the norm.

Izaya will fill the world with monsters for him.

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned in the original notes, there is a lot I wanted to include but never managed to slot into place in a satisfactory manner:
> 
> -the changes in biology that allow Shizuo to conceive, which took a whole year after the fist heat to complete; changes that happened for him and different changes that also happened to Izaya.  
> -Shinra's theories on all the things happening.  
> -the complete chaos Izaya is gonna cause with turning all of the population like it happened to Shizuo and him.  
> -Heiwajima Family Feels and Orihara Family Crazy  
> -the mpreg and birth of the children and that whole thing
> 
> Among a whole lot more details that I probably forgot by now.
> 
> I hope anyone who gets to read this so many years after the series aired and the novels ended manages to enjoy the ride. Thank you for reading.


End file.
